The time has come, the Walrus said, To talk of many things,

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,Of cabbages and kings

— from ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ by Lewis Carroll

There hasn’t been much going on in Indian cricket these past few weeks. No IPL, no bilateral Test series, no one-day triangular, no team announcements, no training camps, and no juicy emails to pry into.

But the BCCI’s mighty wheels have been moving, silently and significantly. Some of the decisions taken in this rare period of lull will have long-lasting ramifications — the corporate tournament, the Champions League, the changing of the SG ball — and some of the trends — Gautam Gambhir reaching the number one ranking in Tests, for example — could be important signs of what’s to follow over the next few years.

1. The first port of call as the new season begins in early September will be a corporate tournament that has already started to create a small flutter. The winning prize of one crore rupees may not be a king’s ransom in modern cricket, but it’s big enough for the event to be taken seriously at a time when the sport is undergoing a not-so-subtle shake-up.

Twelve sides, each with a sprinkling of current and former national team players, will take part, and allegations of unjustified invitations and wrongful omissions have already been made by aggrieved parties Chemplast and Indian Railways. More interesting, however, has been the board’s flip-flop on the participation of India’s leading cricketers in the tournament.

... contd.