How the IPL changed world cricket

How Indian Premier League changed world cricket.

Interestingly, in a time scale less than the length of Sachin Tendulkar's career, the nature and economy of world cricket has fundamentally changed. In 1992, the Indian cricket board, now the richest cricket body in the world, had a deficit of $150,000. And in 1997, the ICC, cricket's apex body, had a little more than $25,000 in its coffers. Once cricket administrators decided to marry cricket with television, the scenario changed. The cricket market became an Indian monopoly thanks to the IPL and within months the schedule of cricket worldwide was driven by the needs of multiple players each wanting a share of the Indian pie.

In fact, when Lalit Modi managed to get a buy in from BCCI President Sharad Pawar for the IPL in early September 2007 and walked out of the meeting with 25 million dollars in hand to start player recruitment, little did he know what was waiting for him in South Africa where the World T-20 was being held. Rather, with Sachin, Sourav and Rahul withdrawing from the tournament it was the only World Cup which was being played without the expected fan fare and euphoria back home. In the absence of the nation’s premier stars, fan interest was lukewarm and few were backing M.S. Dhoni and his young brigade to do something spectacular.

The IPL in many ways was the classic underdog story. Modi wasn’t making much headway with broadcasters who would stonewall the project saying the Indian fan wasn’t going to stand up for it. “You could sense a degree of nervous energy in Lalit. It was as if he was waiting for the one opportunity but wasn’t really getting it. He wanted to show the world what he could do but doors were closing in on him with India not really backing the T-20 format. You could sense something was to give,” said a leading broadcast professional who had followed things closely.

Had India done poorly in South Africa, there was very little chance the IPL would take off. Nothing succeeds like success as they say and the moment India beat Pakistan in a bowl out in the first game of the tournament, a young country sat back and took notice. Here was a format that appealed to the impatient youth. It was cricket of the very highest quality and had more drama than other longer formats put together. And when Yuvraj Singh hit the six sixes off Stuart Broad, the concept got the necessary impetus it so badly needed.

When the victorious Indian team returned to Mumbai and it was pouring cats and dogs, it was a clear case study that the fans backed the concept and came out in support of the team braving the rain. More than 10 lakh people lined up on the streets of Mumbai and it took the team 9 hours to travel from the airport to the Wankhede Stadium. The journey was a spectacle and to think that such a spectacle could be enacted for 50 straight days, every evening, every year was a broadcaster’s delight.