The New Zealand cricket press has reacted by calling BCCI officials “travelling goons”. Rude words those, but look what the BCCI’s doing by enforcing such degrees of separation from the ICL. It is actually ordering cricketers to be put out of work — not just from the field but also places as removed as television studios. The BCCI has always been brash in showing its clout. But its hyper-obsession with punishing anyone associated with the ICL indicates its tunnel vision on developing the game. When the ICL was announced as a private cricket league, the BCCI immediately saw the commercial opportunity it had missed. It’s a measure of the BCCI’s entrepreneurial instincts that it quickly launched the IPL, to immense benefits by way of public interest and revenue.

The rest could have been history. But the BCCI chose to be petty-minded. Instead of seeing itself for what it is, an umbrella body that promotes cricket and is capable of harnessing the game across the board, it saw the potential for turf war — going so far as launching a witch-hunt against Kapil Dev. It failed to spot the opportunity to bring in the capital-rich ICL as a participant in its own league. That way the BCCI could have expanded its empire, and also averted the biggest sin of all: denying others the right to live by their skills.