INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE the Great Indian Story
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INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE The Great Indian Story MIHIR BOSE n 2009, after the second Indian Premier League (IPL) season, Shikhar Dhawan reflected on what this new tournament meant. IBefore the advent of the IPL, Dhawan had made his mark on Indian domestic cricket as a rising young star. He had been part of the Delhi Ranji Trophy winning team, and won the Player of the Tournament award in the U–19 World Cup in 2004. He had even won a Border–Gavaskar cricket scholarship to train at Australia’s Adelaide Academy. Yet none of this matched what the IPL did for him. As he put it: Playing in the IPL was almost like being in an international match. Winning the Ranji Trophy or the U–19 World Cup award did not give me the kind of visibility that the quick-fire IPL knocks gave me. I have had good knocks in Ranji matches, and when you do that the selectors obviously take note. But the power of the [IPL] matches that are telecast live and watched by millions is immense. Not only the selectors, even the fans get to know you and start talking about you. Nothing sums up what has happened better. The shortest form of cricket, with each side restricted to 20 overs, the IPL has revolutionised the fortunes of players, both Indian and overseas, and so transformed cricket that England, after more than a century of world domination, has now had to cede power to India. And this new Indian League, which will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2018, is the ultimate expression of Indian soft power. It means that for the first time a major team sport is not controlled by the West. Winter 2017–Spring 2018, Volume 44, Numbers 3 & 4 53 IIC QUARTERLY INDIA’s ASTONISHING JOHANNESBURG MIRACLE Yet this transformation is a very Indian story. The 20-over game was not only not an Indian invention, but it was shunned by Indians when the English came up with the concept, so much so that the then secretary of the Indian board initially refused to take part in the first T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007, snorting in derision, ‘Twenty20. Why not ten-ten, or five-or one?’ India reluctantly sent a side to South Africa, with its greatest star Sachin Tendulkar dropping out. Rahul Dravid, who had just captained India to their first series victory in England since 1986, also refused to go, and was happy for Mahendra Singh Dhoni to take over as captain. There, in the land where Gandhi fashioned satyagraha, Dhoni led his young team to a sensational victory, beating Pakistan in the final in a thriller. Although the IPL was already being planned, it was this victory that provided the ideal launch pad for the tournament. Back in 1983, India’s victory in the then 60-over World Cup at Lord’s, just as unexpected as the T20 triumph in South Africa, had triggered a revolution in Indian cricket. Before that, Indians shunned the one-day format and seemed wedded to five-day Tests. Yet they now abandoned five-day cricket for this more instant tamasha. But the effect of the 1983 victory was not instantaneous; it was some years before the one-day game took over in India. The effect of the victory in South Africa was almost overnight. On 24 January 2008, exactly four months after Sreesanth had caught Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq to give India victory, rich Indian businessmen met at the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) headquarters in Mumbai. At the end of the bidding process, eight franchises based in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mohali and Mumbai were sold for USD 723.59 million, nearly double the reserve price. Four months later, the first IPL was held—a format of the game that most Indians had not even been much aware of before the miracle of Johannesburg. Even in a country like India, where change can come quickly, this was sensational. In the decade since, Indians have so taken to this form of the game that they have in the process destroyed many myths. One myth was that the only form of cricket that can attract crowds and television income is international cricket. For almost 60 years, all over the world, domestic cricket had been subsidised by 54 MIHIR BOSE : INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE the international game. This is in stark contrast to other team sports such as football, rugby, American football, basketball and baseball. This was even more so in India where, for all the talk of cricket being religion, the crowds only came to worship when the national team was playing. Even in my youth, Ranji Trophy matches, the premier domestic competition, struggled to attract crowds. Now crowds are so sparse that you can walk in free for a Ranji Trophy match, even one featuring Mumbai, the most successful side ever. Yet, in contrast, the IPL draws enormous crowds and, what is more, these matches are played in the heat of the Indian summer. This is another break from the past, as in April and May, traditionally, cricket in India gave way to football and hockey. The economic power of the IPL cannot be overstated and continues to confound most experts. In 2008, broadcast rights to the IPL’s first season were sold for 10 years to Sony-World Sports Group for USD 1.5 billion. This was considered remarkably good money, as in the previous year, ESPN Star offered the International Cricket Council (ICC) USD 1 billion to telecast all ICC events, including quadrennial World Cups and Champions Trophy for eight years between 2007 and 2015. That a domestic competition could fetch more revenue than international competitions was sensational enough; what has followed since is quite remarkable. In September 2017, IPL rights were sold to Star India for five years for` 16,347 crore, which was more than the worth of all the other T20 leagues that have mushroomed in the wake of the IPL in the last decade. THE NEW INDIAN CRICKET EMPIRE But while these figures are impressive, the IPL story is best told by the impact it has had on the world of cricket and why India, once pariah of the cricket world, is now the place cricketers cannot keep away from. The pre-IPL world revolved round an English summer. The moment the English cricket season started in late April, cricket all over the world effectively ceased. Such was the power of the English game that cricketers from all over the world came to play in England. The impact of the English game on the world game was emphasised, following efforts made by the English authorities to revive interest in the game. In the 1960s, English cricket, keen to attract crowds back to the county game, relaxed the strict residency rules for qualifying for county cricket. Overseas cricketers flooded in 55 IIC QUARTERLY and the English county game effectively became the finishing school for overseas cricketers, with great players like Vivian Richards and Imran Khan on display throughout the English summer. India was a bit player in this English summer garden party. Unlike the West Indians and Pakistanis, not many Indians played county cricket. In the early post-war years, Indian cricketers did spent their summers in England. But, unable to play county cricket and desperate to earn when there was no cricket in India, they played in league cricket in the north of England. This meant being the only professionals in amateur club sides which played on Saturday afternoons. If they scored a 50 or took five wickets, a hat was passed round the crowd to collect money that supplemented their meagre income. The cricketers spent the rest of the week doing a bit of coaching and were put up with families in various fairly dismal Lancashire towns. It is a reflection of the standing of Indian cricket—and how poorly rewarded Indian cricketers were—that some of its greats spent many a summer in England during the 1950s and 1960s. The list included Vijay Hazare, the man who captained India to its first- ever Test victory; Vijay Manjrekar, one of India’s best batsmen; Vinoo Mankad, one of its greatest all-rounders; and Subhas Gupte, the man Gary Sobers considers the greatest leg-spinner in the history of the game. Indeed, Mankad’s story illustrates how the IPL has changed the cricket world. In 1952, Mankad’s left-arm spin led to India’s first-ever Test victory at Chepauk (Madras, India). India was to tour England that summer but Mankad, poorly paid, had to earn money, and with the Indian selectors refusing to guarantee him a place in the touring team, he decided to play for a League club in Lancashire. But after India’s disastrous showing in the first Test at Headingley, losing four wickets for no runs—still the worst start in Test history—Indian selectors were forced to turn to Mankad. They paid off his contract; Mankad played in the second Test at Lord’s where, despite another defeat, he performed so brilliantly that it is known as Mankad’s Test. Now, observe the transformation wrought by the IPL. It is 24 January 2008, and bidding is about to start at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium for the franchises that will own the teams taking part in the inaugural IPL tournament. 56 MIHIR BOSE : INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE The Ambani brothers are there; so is Bollywood starlet Priety Zinta, her then boyfriend, the businessman Ness Wadia, along with other businessmen, such as Mohit Burman and Vijay Mallya.