IPL withdraws Sri Lankan players from Chennai matches

            The Indian Premier League (IPL) General Council decided that Sri Lankan players will not play in IPL matches to be held in Chennai. Earlier, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that “the participation of Sri Lankan players in the IPL tournament, with many games to be played in Chennai, will aggravate an already surcharged atmosphere and further offend the sentiments of the people.”

Chennai is scheduled to host 10 matches, including a qualifier and an eliminator after the league phase. The Chief Minister’s letter prompted the IPL Governing Council to convene an emergency meeting where it was decided that Sri Lankan players and officials will not take part in the matches to be played in Chennai. It was a rather quick response to a strongly worded letter from the Chief Minister. The letter said that, The BCCI may be advised by the Government of India to prevail upon the IPL organisers not to allow Sri Lankan players, officials, umpires and support staff to take part in the tournament in Tamil Nadu. The Government of Tamil Nadu will permit IPL matches to be held in Tamil Nadu only if the organisers provide and undertaking that no Sri Lankan players, umpires, officials or support staff would participate in these matches.

This would be the second instance of the IPL saying no to players from a neighbouring nation, although, this time, they have been barred from taking part only in one city. Pakistan players have not been picked by any of the franchisees since 2009. Azhar Mahmood is the only Pakistani to have made it — to Kings XI Punjab — because he holds a British passport.

Recently, the Asian Athletics Championship, scheduled to be held in July in Chennai, was shifted. The State government cited pro-Sri Lankan Tamil sentiments among the people as the reason.

Online comments on the Lankan players to be out of Chennai in IPL:-

Why the North Indian media channels are shrieking in horror and wringing our hands in dismay at the decision of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to ban the stylish Lankan cricketers from playing in Chennai? ‘Well, Chennai isn’t India, how can she take a decision impacting the country’s foreign policy, traditionally considered the exclusive preserve of New Delhi?’ Jayalalithaa has decidedly taken her cue from New Delhi’s propensity to lasso sports into politics. Just as 26/11 and Kargil angered and shocked us at the duplicity of the Pakistani state, so has the killing of Tamilians in Lanka shocked their brethren in Tamil Nadu. The Lankan military bombed indiscriminately and relentlessly the civilian population of North and East Lanka in the months before the LTTE was decisively defeated and decimated. Thus, free from the fear of retaliation, the Lankan soldiers killed in cold blood, secure in the knowledge that they enjoyed impunity.

It is a humanitarian act. In fact, the Centre should have ensured that no Sri Lankan player participated in IPL. The move is not against the players or sports. It is an announcement to the international community that Tamil Nadu is sensitive to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils.

The Shiv Sena ensured that Pakistani players were left out of IPL in 2008 (and still no Pakistani players is in IPL); Telangana agitation succeeded in shifting the venue out of Hyderabad in 2009. But when Tamil Nadu insists, the whole Indian ‘uncivilised’ media cries to a large extent, that Tamil Nadu is dangerous to Federal of India. Politics and sports should not be mixed up. But they forget the same mix up when India cancelled friendly match of Hockey with Pakistan earlier this month.

 Related links:-

Jaya's letter to PM on IPL matches to ban Sri Lankan Players from Chennai matches