Consider the abbreviation FIFA and you think of a benchmark for a sports organisation and its effective running and development of a sport. Not a very fair comparison some might say, but just for effect, now consider cricket’s power equivalent - the BCCI. Depending on your involvement with the game, it will either evoke a sense of dismissal, disillusionment or disgust.

Staffed with possibly the most incompetent governing officials of any sport and extreme political influence over its affairs, the BCCI's obvious lack of ‘fundamentals’ has never quite reflected its monetary gains. As a governing body it’s rarely demonstrated much beyond the “board of control” part of its name to genuinely look out “for cricket in India”. As someone fittingly put it: “The cricket board is the agnostic head of the staunchest religion in our country, it rears its head when provoked, otherwise it’s in perennial slumber.”

If you look at the psychology of it all, then you’ll realise that ICL was a phenomenon waiting to happen. The 'rebel' Twenty20 league is rapidly gaining support and acceptance from within the cricketing fraternity including the man in the street and is the effect of a cause that was never really undertaken by the BCCI. Kapil Dev is a prime example - the man who led India to glory in the 1983 World Cup and was former chair of the National Cricket Academy was sacked from that position by the BCCI because of his involvement with the ICL.

'The cricket board is the agnostic head of the staunchest religion in our country, it rears its head when provoked, otherwise it’s in perennial slumber'

For years now the safari-suited side of the sport has been all about power, politics and cartels. The BCCI for these folks has never been a means to an end. Instead its membership has always been a playground for the power hungry and control freaks whose only achievement has been finding ways and means to get some more. ICL is the inevitable response to this vicious cycle that has never allowed Indian cricket to get any semblance of certainty and direction. The players, stakeholders and fans have all been let down in a sea of uncertainty.

The game has gone from a position of strength to a position of weakness in terms of the enormous gap between the ‘lack of excellence in playing’ and unparalleled ‘excellence in following’. The formation of the ICL could not have been timed better. The non-performance of our ‘best XI’ at pivotal moments - the continuous non-governance of the front office and a gradual change in the following public coming together to slice the sport right through the middle.

The ICL might not immediately become the ‘real thing’; the BCCI still holds the trump card - Team India. But cricket might never be the same again because the might of ICL will not give in and the egos of the BCCI will not let go. And, contrary to what either party might claim, cricket will be divided and the balance of power will shift. Youngsters are already tuning in to football and Formula 1. If cricket in India doesn’t change, India will change it.