The Indian Premier League

The Indian Premier League is surfing the tidal wave of Twenty20 cricket, and after only one season had become the richest cricket competition on the planet.

The IPL cricket tournament was created in 2007 by the Board of Cricket Control for India, and rapidly left the rival Indian Cricket League in its wake.

The timing of the first IPL season couldn’t have been better. Only a few months earlier, India had won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa, with the added triumph of beating old rivals Pakistan in the final. It was only natural for the Indian Premier League to capitalize on this success.

The World Cup was a sell out, with huge, hard-hat wearing crowds revelling in the show-biz excitement of “disco cricket”. The event also attracted thousands of non-cricket fans, and even cricket traditionalists had to concede that the event had been a great success. But why the hard-hats? If you’ve been to a Twenty20 match, you know the risk to spectators from the multiple sixes hit into the crowd!

The formula for success

But, despite the success of the Twenty20 World Cup, the Indian Premier League adopted a wholly different format as well as a whole new concept of team selection. The BCCI modelled the competition loosely on Premier League football, with teams based in eight major Indian cities. Teams play each other twice, in one home and one away game then the four best ranked teams qualify for the semi-finals. But if the city format was radical, team selection was on a different plane altogether.

Each squad has a minimum of sixteen players. For the 2009 competition, this includes a maximum of 10 foreign players of which only four can be in the playing XI. The remainder of the squads are composed of local players, including at least two from the BCCI under 22 side. Five of the Indian national team are given “icon” status, and must play for their home city – these are Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag.

This is a response to the criticism that Indian domestic cricket was a poor relation to its national team, and consequently starved of resources. Hence the blend of international superstars and local players in each side.

The teams are owned by a mixture of construction and media companies, power and entertainment firms, with the financial muscle to pay six figure sums for the best players. They hope to profit from their investments through sponsorship, ticket sales and franchising. The BCCI profits enormously from the global media rights to the competition, which exceeded $1 billion in 2008.

The Indian passion

Countries without IPL players have certainly found it difficult to relate to the teams. Time zone differences had an impact on some viewing figures in the southern hemisphere. But as the 2008 champions, the Rajasthan Royals were captained by Shane Warne and Shaun Marsh was the highest run scorer, there was plenty of interest in Australia.

At first it seemed that the success of the whole venture relied on the continued worldwide attraction of Twenty20 cricket. But there's another dimension to consider - the location.

The second tournament was transferred to South Africa, because of security issues in India. It was only a limited success, not least because the Indian Premier League is just that - Indian, and the excitement needs to feed off the passion of a packed Indian cricket crowd. And you just don't find that outside the sub-continent.

The third IPL season is back in India, but there are rumours that the 2011 tournament will be in the USA. Great idea to try once again to bring cricket to the home of baseball, but a big challenge, especially without the passion of the home fans.

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At home in India, the idea of the city team is a little alien at the moment. But, with a large proportion of the one billion population being cricket fanatics who are benefitting from the Indian economic boom, the BCCI reckons that this ready market for the Indian Premier League can only get bigger. It has some way to go before it matches Premier League football, but the potential is there. Watch this space…

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