Diplomacy gone wrong?

"We have taken up the matter with Indian minister for sports.", said Pakistan sports minister. The IPL snub to Pakistani players has turned into a huge diplomatic issue. Depending on who you ask, most Pakistani elite are calling for cutting off sporting ties with India. Most people in India don't care much about the issue but for omnipresent Indian media and elite sportsmen! They feel Pakistanis deserved better. Clearly, BCCI and IPL completely failed at assessing the impact of the snub they gave to Pakistani players.

Now let us put this in context. IPL is a private league run by a private organization, BCCI. Third edition of IPL is expected to generate revenue of 800 Crores. People who own IPL teams are sophisticated businessmen and businesswomen. They prefer making decisions that make business sense. This one, to ignore members of world T20 champion team Pakistan for their teams, makes perfect sense. After all, relations between India and Pakistan haven't been the healthiest in past one and half year. Any new terror strikes against India can create even more tension between these two south Asian nuclear armed nations. Who would guarantee Visas to Pakistani players to play in the IPL if all hell were to break loose? Which businessmen would invest their money for such players whose availability is not even                 guaranteed? Not Vijay Mallya and Mukesh Ambani, for sure.                                                   

Where it gets interesting though, is the fact that, none of the franchises bid for any of the Pakistani player at all. And it all started looking suspicious. People assumed that franchises might have, by covert consensus, decided not to bid for any Pakistani player. Media picked up the issue and it became one of gigantic proportions.

I also have my version of speculation. Franchises asked IPL to advise them on bidding for Pakistani players regarding logistical issues they foresaw. IPL warned them against bidding for these players for Visa and security issues. Franchises decided to tow IPL line.

Doesn't sound too fishy to me. But they failed to present it well. As many "elite" later suggested, IPL could easily have disqualified Pakistani players citing above reasons and depict themselves as transparent in this regard. Lalit Modi's effigies would still have been burnt in Lahore, but for a different reason and MEA, Sports Ministry, BCCI and IPL would not have had to issue clarifications.

Cleary, India lost some brownie points on diplomacy!

Let me know your thoughts in comments section.