History Of IPL

When the Subhash Chandra led Essel group announced that it intended to organize a rebel league – better known as the Indian Cricket League – the bosses at BCCI had little option but to get in the ring and accept the challenge by first calling the league unofficial and “Veterans cricket with a change” and then bringing their own city specific cricket plan on the fore.

This plan is what we now know as the Indian Premier League or IPL, and, one season on, cricket fans around the globe are eagerly awaiting the 2009 version, a hit and hope, drama galore edition of a competition that won many plaudits last year.

The first step: Essel Group’s ICL brainchild deserves most of the credit for bringing about the phenomenon otherwise known as the IPL – an event that, according to its father Mr Modi, had been germinating in his brain for some 15 years. The plan was initially shelved and then subsequently revived by the same man until the day came when the BCCI gave the IPL a green light.

The Concept: The concept was straight out of the BPL books, but Indians were new to it, having never seen foreigners play for their local cities before. IPL brought the Shane Warnes the Adam Gilchrists and many similar stars to represent the Indian cities. There were eight teams (and therefore eight cities) - who played on a home and an away basis.

The top four made it through to the semi-finals, followed, naturally, by the final. The eight teams had a team owner, corporate looks and business savvy galore - top dollar demands top notch business acumen. These team rights were bought by the owners from the BCCI via a bidding process from which the BCCI made billions. The same process then decided which players played for which side.

The Warring teams, the captains of the ships and the franchisee owners: The pioneering Mr. Modi decided that the IPL should consist of eight teams representing eight cities, whilst also saying that the same outfits would exist for at least the next three seasons. The chosen cities then obviously had to have good catchy names - as they say in branding “a good name is half the battle won in creating a brand”.

It was decreed that the teams had to have at least four under-22 and four local cricketers in the squad. The teams were also not allowed to have more than four foreign players in their playing XI, a rule which created a whole lot of ruckus amongst franchisee owners especially those who had a plethora of them. In the end, Mr Modi remained umoved, declaring that it was the only way to development local talent and that the move would decrease the whole hearted and total reliance on foreign players.

For the first season, the eight sides were Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight Riders, Bangalore Royal Challengers, Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and the Deccan Chargers from Hyderabad.

All but one of the teams were captained by Indians, the only exception being the Rajasthan Royals, who were skippered by Shane Warne. The concept of icon cricketers was also introduced with the crème de la crème squad member receiving 15% more than the highest paid player in their teams. In the end, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag were the icon cricketers, although they had to represent the cities from which they came.

From Bollywood starlets to King Khan and from the Casanova industrialist to the biggest Indian businessmen - all were owners. This list of luminaries included names such as Mukesh Ambani, Vijay Mallya, Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta all of who were keen to be a part of the IPL, extravaganza. Other owners included GMR Holdings, Deccan Chronicle, Emerging Media and India Cements. 

The Lucre involved: Though money was just a part of the entire sporting spectacle, it still became the main talking point, with the Mumbai team being acquired by the elder of the Ambani brothers for more than US$110 million. Bangalore were purchased by liquor baron Mr. Mallya for almost that amount but the surprise story was Rajasthan Royals with the team fetching the least amount of money. Rather ironically, the team eventually won the tourney.

The money game continued with Sony bagging the broadcasting rights in a ten-year deal worth US$1 billion. The players were richer for all the wheeling and dealing. M.S. Dhoni’s contract, fro example, was worth US$1.3 million, followed by other high earners such as Andrew Symonds, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly.