Subhash Chandra's Indian Cricket League ran from 2007-09. It wasn't the first time Indian cricketers were playing in private "masala" matches for money. But it was the biggest private sporting event in the country - and the first in the T20 format - till the Indian Premier League (IPL) launched in 2008.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) came down hard on the ICL. It issued a lifetime ban on every ICL cricketer, preventing them from playing for India. The ICC subsequently issued a similar ban on non-Indian cricketers who had signed up. They sacked Kapil Dev, new ICL executive committee head, as National Cricket Academy (NCA) chairperson, and denied the ICL their venues.
Chandra had signed up former cricketers like Brian Lara, Chris Cairns, and Inzamam-ul-Haq, and active ones like Andrew Hall, Abdul Razzaq, and Ian Harvey. He also got some former India players – Rohan Gavaskar, J.P. Yadav, Hemang Badani, Deep Dasgupta, Reetinder Sodhi – but the squads largely comprised domestic cricketers.
He also appointed Kapil Dev as head of the ICL executive committee (whom the BCCI promptly sacked as NCA chair) but could not get the men who mattered. There was no Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid or Sourav Ganguly or Anil Kumble or Yuvraj Singh or Harbhajan Singh or M.S. Dhoni.
Chandra fought back with his limited resources. He found venues. He used his Bollywood access to get the stars to perform in innings breaks. And the fans loved the cricket.
But two days after the 2007 World T20 began, the BCCI launched the Indian Premier League (IPL), their own T20 tournament. The money was big, and since this would be an official league, no cricketer would be banned for playing in the IPL.
The ICL stood no chance. To pay his cricketers throughout the year, Chandra had to make them play more. The second season of the ICL was played only three months after the first. A new team, the Lahore Badshahs, consisted of only Pakistani cricketers. He then ran a tournament with an India XI, a Pakistan XI, and a World XI – in other words, he used the India-Pakistan rivalry to compete with the IPL.
But the first season of IPL became a hit of such proportions that by the time it got over, the ICL was as good as forgotten. By 2008, the ICL was over. In 2009, the BCCI offered amnesty to everyone they had banned. Many accepted it. Some even played in the IPL.
But Chandra did leave a legacy. The BCCI doubled the match fees of domestic cricketers from INR 16,000 to INR 35,000. It has continued to rise since then.
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