Over the next few weeks the world of cricket will be dominated by the Indian Premier League, a radically new tournament that could change the game forever
Jayaditya Gupta15-Apr-2008
India’s success at the World Twenty20 in South Africa quickly made the country go gaga over the newest version of the game © Getty Images
Over the next few weeks the fate of cricket, that quintessentially British sportoften seen as a sleepy throwback to a bygone era, will be in the hands of the IndianPremier League, a radically new six-week tournament. The IPL, in which the world’sbest players play a new, charged-up form of cricket, begins on Friday; its success -with US$2 billion at stake, no one is contemplating the possibility of failure – couldend up changing the way cricket is played, viewed and governed. It could becomefaster, more commercial, with less time for the its traditional mystifying ritualsand subtleties; it could – whisper it – become more American.Whatever happens, every step in any direction is likely to attract controversy – asthe IPL has since it was unveiled last September. In the seven months since,national cricket boards have expressed alarm at its possible impact; the game’sleading voices have warned against letting the IPL – and all it stands for – takeover cricket; one respected writer called it “local hooch” to the Scotch oftraditional cricket; a former World Cup-winning captain called it “instant noodles”.A journalist in New Zealand, a country particularly threatened by the league, saidit is to cricket “what diarrhoea is to dodgy curry houses – an unfortunateby-product.” The Beijing Olympics has probably received better press in recenttimes.And all this for a mere sporting event that lasts less than two months, takes placein one country – India – and even has the blessings of cricket’s globaladministrator, the International Cricket Council. What’s the fuss all about?For nearly 150 years, the centrepiece of cricket has been contests betweencountries; for the first time the sport is about to see a contest among clubs andfeaturing the world’s top players – who, paid nearly ten times more than theirinternational match fees, could contemplate a career outside the strictly regulatedinternational game. Scyld Berry, one of the game’s most respected writers, callsthis the “fourth age” of cricket.Cricket’s stereotyped “Empire” image – an elegant game played in pristine whites ata nonchalant pace over five days, with frequent breaks for lunch, tea and drinks -was first altered 30 years ago by the Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, whopicked up the nascent one-day version of cricket, added coloured clothing,floodlights and catchy slogans [“Big boys play at night”] and made it a TV-friendlyspectacle. His World Series Cricket, deemed unofficial by the establishment, alsogave the players more money so when peace was finally made the players and the game were left better off than before.
The eight teams in the IPL have a mix of both Indian and international players, but will fans attuned to contests between countries take to this new venture? © AFP
The IPL has taken that process to a logical conclusion, at double speed and with afew significant twists. First, it employs cricket’s latest version, Twenty20, whichis short on time – matches are over in three hours, one-tenth the time of a regularinternational match and not much more than a football or basketball game – and bigon entertainment and hype. The compression takes away a lot of the game’s subtlety;the dice are loaded in favour of the batsmen – the batters in cricket – who areencouraged to hit as many sixes, or home runs, as possible. Traditionalists see itas a brazen perversion of the game, but its format is designed to attract newer,younger audiences – especially those hooked on European soccer and Formula One racing- and provides cricket the best opportunity for growth.Next, it replaces the traditional “national” element of cricket, where at thehighest level teams represent countries, with city-based franchises owned by, amongothers, India’s wealthiest man, Mukesh Ambani; its biggest film star, Shah RukhKhan; its flashiest businessman, Vijay Mallya [owner of the Whyte & Mackaydistillery and the Force India Formula 1 team]; and Rupert Murdoch’s son Lachlan.These teams have on their rosters the best players from across the world so, insteadof India taking on Australia, you will have Sachin Tendulkar, the game’s biggeststar, playing for his Mumbai team alongside Shaun Pollock, from South Africa, andLasith Malinga of Sri Lanka; they could be taking on a Bangalore side featuringIndia’s current and past captains, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid, and top playersfrom Australia, West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa.It is similar in some respects to England’s domestic cricket league, where some ofthe world’s best players have traditionally played for the county cricket clubsduring the April-September season. The difference, though is that the county clubs,like the clubs in all top European soccer leagues, were established on ageographical basis with fixed fan following; the IPL’s franchises are sold to thehighest bidder, divorced from the notion of geographical or local support.This is at once the league’s strength and weakness. By selling the eight franchises,for which it made $723 million when the ten-year rights were auctioned in January,the IPL has freed itself of any liability risk; it is now up to each franchise tocover its costs through ticket sales, local advertising and minimum guaranteereturns from the IPL. However, the concept of franchises goes against the averageIndian cricket fan’s idea of the game as it should be played and is in defiance ofthe fact that Indian cricket’s support base is focused almost purely on the nationalteam. So it’s difficult to gauge how a fan of the Hyderbad team will appreciateShahid Afridi, a Pakistani batsman, targeting the universally worshippedTendulkar.
Joining the IPL bandwagon are Vijay Mallya, who also owns the Force India Formula One team … © AFP
All of this is fuelled by a financial outlay the likes of which the game has neverseen, from billion-dollar television deals to ten-fold increases in player wages. TheIPL sold the ten-year TV rights for $1 billion – a stunning amount for a largelyuntried format and a virgin tournament. Put into perspective, the ICC sold the2007-2015 rights to its tournaments – some of cricket’s biggest events, includingtwo World Cups – for around $1.1 billion.At the player auction – another first for cricket, though more familiar to Americansport – last February, 75 players were signed up by the eight franchises for a totalof $36 million. That’s an average of around $500,000 for each player, for 44 days’work – with the rest of the year free to earn money through international cricket.At the top, India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni will earn $1.5 million this season; that issix weeks’ wages for Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the world’s best soccer player atthe moment, and not much less than what Derrek Lee or David Ortiz earned over thesame period in 2007 while playing for the Cubs and the Red Sox. And this with a salarycap in the first year: From Season Two, when the caps are off, it’s anyone’s guesshow high the pay scales can go.The wealth is spread all round. Ishant Sharma, a rookie bowler [pitcher] in hisfirst season, will earn $950,000, largely on the back of a hugely successful tour ofAustralia earlier this year. Australia’s Andrew Symonds will earn $1.35 million, atleast 20% more than he is likely to get playing a full year for Australia.The knock-on effect is easy to spot – national cricket boards are now planning payhikes at various levels, which can only be good for the game.There is a large element of self-preservation in what those national boards aredoing, however, because the IPL has the potential to set up a parallel cricketstructure with its power to offer a player more money in one season than he can earnin five years of regular cricket. Right now the IPL operates in a 44-day windowsqueezed into an already packed calendar tightly regulated by the ICC, so minimisingthe risk of players forfeiting their national or other pre-arranged commitments forthe new league. It has also largely kept out players from England, the one countrywhose regular season overlaps with the IPL’s. There is no guarantee the IPL will beso accommodating in future, and that is a huge source of concern – will the game’stop players place cash over country? It’s a particular concern for the smallercountries such as New Zealand, where cricket is not the most popular sport. And willthe IPL, which is based on Twenty20 cricket, force out the traditional form of thegame, which requires very different skills?There’s one more significant difference between the IPL and all that cricket hasseen in the past: Where once the sport was governed, like the Empire, out of London, the IPL – and everything it stands for – is controlled entirely byIndia. The IPL is owned by the Indian cricket board, the BCCI, and is the brainchildof Lalit Modi, a vice-president of the BCCI and the man who has, in the past threeyears, raked in billions of dollars in television and endorsement deals by thesimple expedient of regulating the control of a game that has near-religious status in abooming economy. It is no secret that 70% of cricket’s economy is generatedby India; now, that muscle has a mind of its own.In many ways, Twenty20 cricket is perfect for the IPL. It is short, and so able toslot into primetime television programming, the base on which it rests. Indian fanshave grown tired of cricket’s longer versions – the five-day matches are sometimes played innear-empty stadia and, though the one-day game is a sellout, it is beaten for sheerimpact and entertainment by Twenty20. And, in a most happy coincidence, the launchof the IPL last September was followed, weeks later, by the national team winningthe inaugural world championship. Since then it has become a whole new ball game.Yet it won’t be an exaggeration to say the BCCI stumbled on the IPL. Twenty20cricket had been around for a few years, finding spectacular success in England,where it was created in 2003 to take advantage of the long summer evenings. Matcheswould begin after working hours, enabling the average cricket fan to unwind with hisfriends, family and a few beers. It caught on, for the same reasons, in Australiaand South Africa, and in West Indies where the Texan billionaire Allen Stanfordbuilt a small township and bankrolled an entire tournament.
… and Shahrukh Khan (left), one of the biggest stars in Bollywood. His team, Kolkata Knight Riders, includes the 19-year-old Ishant Sharma, who was bought for a whooping $950,000 © AFP
It left India cold, however, largely because there was no apparent planning. Beforewinning the world championship in South Africa, the Indian team had played oneTwenty20 international and the domestic tournament had been a largely forgotten affair. Oneseminal turning point was the World Cup in the one-day format a year ago, atournament in which India fared disastrously, losing to unfancied Bangladesh andcrashing out in the first round. Within days, the Indian media czar Subhash Chandra,who had fallen out with the BCCI over a telecast rights deal, had announced theIndian Cricket League (ICL), a Twenty20 tournament featuring international players -mainly those on the fringes of international cricket or those who’d just retired -spread among six teams.All this while, it later appeared, the BCCI had been working towards such a leaguebut, seemingly caught unawares by the ICL, responded by saying it would notrecognise the league and that those who played in it would not be able to avail ofany benefits. The ICC too said it would not recognise the ICL, followed by everymajor national cricket board. This effectively meant the ICL was an unofficial orrebel league and those who joined it would not be eligible to play any other,official, form of cricket.The second part of the BCCI’s response was to fast-track its own league, which wasduly unveiled by Modi, its commissioner, in September. Modi had spent the pastcouple of years building up the BCCI’s portfolio of record-breaking deals,commercialising every aspect of cricket – television rights in India, overseas, andin neutral countries, shirt sponsorships, unprecedented endorsements. The IPL,though, was the icing on the cake.The Americanisation of cricket – the concept of franchises, a “commissioner” incharge of the league instead of the usual chairman or president, player auctions,the subsequent draft picks for rookies, salary caps, the direct references to themajor American sports leagues in the IPL’s prospectus – has its roots in the yearsModi spent in the US, as a student at Duke in the 1980s where he spent his free timewatching sports on TV. He says he was “fascinated” by the manner in whichprofessional sport is run in the US, and the fact that someone could make his livingout of sport. Returning home, Modi – born into a wealthy business family – sniffedopportunity in the way cricket’s TV rights deals were signed. His Modi EntertainmentNetwork worked with ESPN to buy the rights in the major cricket-playing countries,in most cases beating Rupert Murdoch and often getting bargain prices.From there to the free-market concept of the IPL was a relatively short journey butthere is a long road ahead of the IPL, many unanswered questions, several doubts. Isit sport or entertainment? Franchises have been given a free hand to bring inrevenues and it is a no-brainer that Bollywood will play a large role to attract thecrowds. Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood’s biggest star, owns the Kolkata franchise;another star, Preity Zinta, is a co-owner of the Mohali [Punjab] team. Other teamshave launched TV promos featuring local heroes.The issue of revenues is a grey area. The only guarantee is what the BCCI has earned- close to $2 billion, including TV rights, bids for franchises and otherendorsement deals. Part of the TV rights money will be ploughed back to thefranchises, every year, as will the prize money. There are no other guarantees – notfor the advertisers, the franchises, the TV channel [Sony] that bought the rights.Ticket sales is an issue at the time of writing, four days before the start of theleague – Shah Rukh, whose Kolkata team plays at the 100,000-capacity EdenGardens stadium, says he is disappointed at slow ticket sales and having “sleeplessnights” over his involvement with the franchise.Those anxieties don’t hold a candle, of course, to what cricket outside of the IPLis feeling – or fearing. An exodus to the IPL could severely destabilise the game,at the very least forcing a reworking of international schedules. Over the longerterm, if the league is a success, it could simply become a magnet for young talentfavouring its direct power-play over the game’s traditional subtleties andcomplexities. That, given the IPL’s genesis, would be a fitting transition.