By Tony Cozier
Introduced with a budget exceeding that of several West Indian governments and pay packets for principal players unimaginable even in an age when millionaires in professional sports proliferate, cricket’s universal attention has been riveted these past few months on the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The effect on the game as a whole of the most hyped tournament in the brief life of the Twenty20 format has created as much comment, and concern, as Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, another revolutionary creation, did 30 years ago.
The IPL’s rival that preceded it, the Indian Cricket League (ICL), has more in common with Packer in that it is a private tournament, set up specifically in opposition to the establishment after it lost its bid for television rights to Indian cricket. The IPL is simply a counter by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
But, with the white ball, the floodlights, the coloured gear, the field restrictions, the promotional hype and the enhanced players’ contracts, both are direct derivatives of the late Australian media magnate’s innovation – as, indeed, is every form of the shorter game since.
So are the issues that surround them, the survival of Test cricket not surprisingly being the most prominent.
Spread over five days with a minimum of 450 overs allocated for four innings it is the antithesis of its most recent by-product.
Everyone who is anyone in the game has had his say on the effects, short and long term, of the IPL. But, inspite of Twenty20’s immediate popularity and the ready investment of millions of dollars into the IPL by India’s intrepid entrepreneurs and wealthy film stars, few have ventured further than former England captain Mike Atherton’s cautious “the game is set onto a radically different course.”
