Friday, 22 March 2024
By Nirmalya Dutta

IPL at 17: How the biggest champion of Brand India was born

Let us revisit the origin story of the Greatest Show On Earth, the Indian Premier League, a tournament that is the cricketing equivalent of the Bethesda Pool that instantly heals broken backs and strung hamstrings.
It also has other magical properties, like making white folks dance to Telugu reels, making Australians lose their trademark growl, or taking out the sting from icy relationships. Now, some claim that it’s because of the huge monies involved but let’s not be that crass and just assume that everyone loves the Indian Premier League because it’s the greatest spectacle.

It’s also not an exaggeration that IPL hasn’t just changed how cricket is played – batsmen can barely last two days on pitches that pay obeisance to Galileo and have forgotten the art of defending with a straight bat – but it is now one of the biggest leagues in the world.

There have been T20 tournaments before the IPL, and there have been attempts to recreate the magic of the IPL afterwards, but they have all failed. To borrow from the lines of Peter Drury’s Shakespearean words about Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United, the IPL is now “vintage beyond valuation, beyond forgery or imitation”.

It cannot be copied, simply because like the exact moment (t=0) that created the primordial soup from which sprung life, the circumstances that led to the IPL’s success cannot be reengineered.

For those, in need of a slight science lesson, the current theory about our existence that doesn’t involve deities is that self-replicating complex amino acid-based compounds emerged from a primordial soup of water and chemicals that came to life thanks to a serendipitous lightning strike.

The Ingredients

The conditions for the primordial soup that created the IPL were thanks to a farrago of ingredients and circumstances that swirled together to create the perfect concoction.

The first ingredient was obviously economic liberalisation. The second major ingredient was Jagmohan Dalmiya, the patriarch of modern Indian cricket. The story goes that in 1983, when India reached the final, then BCCI president NK Salve was flatly denied a few extra complimentary passes by the Marylebone Cricket Club. Dalmiya, then the BCCI treasurer, took the denial as a personal affront and would spend the next decade Reverse UNOing the progenitors of the Raj.

He slowly chipped away at England’s dominance and created the Asian bloc. Closer home, he broke the state-owned Doordarshan’s monopoly (BCCI had to pay RS 5 lakh per match) over the live telecast of cricket matches by bringing in Trans World International (TWI) that earned BCCI a profit of $600,000. Indian cricket finally caught a glimpse of Mammon. While Dalmiya would soon be overwhelmed by the inevitable power struggles in the corridors of power, another young administrator from Rajasthan would stand out.

In stepped Lalit Modi, the scion of a hallowed business family, whose biggest achievements before the IPL was bringing FTV to India and after it, was convincing the world – albeit for an attosecond – that he was dating Sushmita Sen. Now, 99 times out of 100, a micromanager like Lalit Modi probably would’ve failed, but this was that elusive one-off.

As a long-form profile in The Caravan read: “If the IPL’s story is unusual, the story of its mad architect is positively bizarre. With a string of business failures, a personality with all the tenderness of a battering ram, and a host of foes, Modi shouldn’t have been able to build anything nearly as successful as the IPL. Somehow, and very rapidly, he did—and then, just as rapidly, just when he was perched atop the world, he lost it all.”

Modi’s gigantic and unrestrained id finally led to his collapse after he picked too many fights, including one with the nation’s unofficial thesaurus, but the entity he had created was unstoppable now.

Lightning Strike

Teaching the former POTUS the Helicopter Shot?

While the aforementioned provided the soup, it still needed a lightning strike to bring it to life, and that came in the form of Donald Trump’s golf buddy: Mahendra Singh Dhoni. India was on another tryst with destiny, and there was one man who would make it happen.

It was 2007. At that time, Indians hadn’t warmed up to T20 cricket and the board was quite reluctant to send a team for the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa. Only when their chances of hosting the 2011 World Cup were threatened did the BCCI send a second XI – shorn off the likes of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid – to play instead.

That tournament was memorable and India’s first ICC trophy since 2002.

There were Yuvraj Singh’s gigantic six-sixes against Stuart Broad.

There was the infamous bowl-out when Pak players tried to spin the ball even while bowling to a batter-less wicket.

And then there was the heartwarming moment when MS Dhoni handed the ball to Joginder Sharma (who recently was a DSP in Punjab Police) in the last over in the final against Pakistan. As Siddharth Monga recalled in a piece when MS Dhoni stepped down as captain, Dhoni told Sharma: “You have bowled so many overs in domestic cricket with so much dedication, when no one is watching. Don’t worry, cricket won’t let you down now."

Also, there was another dark cloud on the horizon that threatened BCCI’s dominance: the Indian Cricket League, which was backed by Subhash Chandra and the powerful Essel Group.

Much like Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket pushed the old doozies of world cricket to adopt new-fangled choices like coloured clothing and white balls, the ICL ticked many of the boxes that would eventually be adopted by the IPL including city-based franchises, foreign stars, and big prizes.

But the BCCI didn’t take kindly to the revolt. As Sundeep Khanna pointed out in a piece titled Before the IPL, there was the ICL: “The prospect of losing out, finally got the BCCI to act. It refused to recognise the rebel league and banned all the players who chose to play for ICL. It also forbade its member associations in various states from giving their grounds to host ICL’s matches and in the unkindest cut, sacked Kapil Dev from the National Cricket Association for his role in supporting ICL. With associations of the other major cricket-playing countries also backing the BCCI ban on players playing for the ICL, the rebel league was doomed and though it did drag on till 2009, it never really took off.”

In 2008, with the “blessings of the BCCI,” the IPL took shape. The BCCI even lifted the ban on ICL players from participating in the IPL as long as they disassociated from the ICL.

The First Chapter

The grand stride started with the auction for the teams with a base price of $400 million and went for $723.59 million. Mukesh Ambani bought Mumbai Indians. Vijay Mallya bought Royal Challengers Bangalore. Also in the mix were Bollywood stars, realty giants, captains of industry, and media tycoons.

The first IPL players’ auction was held by Richard Maddley, a quintessential Englishman who would express undue regret whenever a player went unsold with an expression that would suggest that his own son had been denied a fair shake.

Several cities were given options to pick Icon Players – Mumbai Indians (Sachin Tendulkar), Kolkata Knight Riders (Sourav Ganguly), Royal Challengers Bangalore (Rahul Dravid), Kings XI Punjab (Yuvraj Singh), and Delhi Daredevils (Virender Sehwag). The legend states that MI keeping Tendulkar as an Icon Player prevented Mumbai Indians from getting MS Dhoni, who would be picked up by Chennai Super Kings, instantly creating another outsider superstar – like an actress-turned-CM from Karnataka and a bus conductor-turned-Lord of the Universe from Maharashtra – who would go on to become a beloved Tamil icon. N Srinivasan was very clear that they had to get MS Dhoni at any cost, simply because Chennai didn’t have the burden of paying an Icon (who’d get 10% more than the highest player, thereby putting a strain on the franchise’s purse).

Interestingly, Delhi Daredevils had the option to pick up Virat Kohli (as a youth player) but instead chose pacer Pradeep Sangwan, which is almost like Blackburn Rovers’ decision not to sign Zinedine Zidane because they had Tim Sherwood. The first match was everything the IPL promised, so much bread and circus that even Juvenal would’ve been satiated.

There were cheerleaders.

There were after-parties.

There was Lalit Modi, Blackberry welded to his palm, micromanaging everything, including the quality of the lanyard used on ID cards.

There were our favourite cricketers shaking a leg with Bollywood’s who’s who.

It was a non-stop jamboree where we were all invited.

It also involved monies that would boggle people’s minds, lifting poor cricketers (and their families) out of poverty in one fell swoop. The IPL also helped create a factory line of superstars who wouldn’t be intimidated on the big stage. If today, a Shubman Gill or Yashashvi Jaiswal have no issues in the limelight, it’s because the IPL made them ready to face the limelight against the toughest of opponents.

The IPL gave hundreds of cricketers a better future that they couldn’t have imagined in a world without the IPL. Author Arnab Ray, better known by his moniker Great Bong, summed it up best in a piece on Dinesh Karthik titled Being DK in the Age of MSD:

“Often derided as the “bane of cricket”, IPL sure has done a lot of harm, to good taste and common sense, but it has also enabled the DKs of the Dhoni generation to have a career. And by career, I don’t just mean money, and IPL, we can all agree, has given all its stakeholders a lot of that. But, more importantly, it has given “almost great” cricketers a place in the sun, the opportunity to play in front of packed stadiums and living rooms, to find that which all of us look for in the grand scheme of things – relevance – as opposed to plying their trade in front of empty stands, sleeping in second-class coaches, riding on a Bajaj to go for practice, and hoping to become, post-retirement, an umpire or a Ranji coach while contemplating, every waking second, what could have been.”

Of course, the IPL’s ugly underbelly would be exposed in later years with the spot-fixing, the illegal betting by "enthusiasts", the lurid after-parties, the misogynist treatment of cheerleaders, the on-field Fight Club bouts between players, and sometimes franchise owners and security guards.

But none of that ever threatened to derail the IPL that charged on like an unstoppable juggernaut. Today by broadcasting rights per match, the second-most expensive sporting league, only behind the National Football League. Of course, the NFL takes place throughout the year, and the IPL lasts only for a month or two. Player salaries are high but there’s still a cap.

A second key differentiator is the fact that these events are held in countries that are significantly richer (both PPP and per capita GDP) than India.

When the IPL started, Forbes valued the average franchise at $67 million. In the next 13 years, the teams are now valued at $1.04 billion. The total IPL ecosystem is now believed to be worth $10.90 billion. That valuation might increase to $30 billion if the proposed Saudi deal goes through.

And, in two days, it will start again. Even though there are different captains, all eyes will be on the strawberry farmer-turned-philosopher and the man who sacrificed gluten and chole kulche as CSK faces off against RCB. All the analysts will be back. Die-hards will make their fantasy teams. Some will travel all over the country to have their hearts broken. And some of us lazier mortals will channel our inner Fitoor Mishra, kick back our heels, and say: “Chakhna cricket ka season aa gaya hai, Koi peg bana do.”