CHENNAI: April 18, 2008. It was a manic evening at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Not just for Brendon McCullum and his 73-ball 158. For an Indian audience aware of the correlation between hype and cricket, it was a crash course in unseen frenzy. In about three hours, the crowd and media were left equally dazed, swearing they had never seen a cocktail like this.
Twelve years, record-breaking business deals and many controversies later, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has lived up to that first-day promise. It is the most sought after cricket tournament in the world, a super hit with all stakeholders. Players, boards, sponsors, broadcasters, middlemen, fans and several other elements want their grab of the pie. Those who are paid and those who pay to keep the show going are crazy about it, often leading to courtroom drama and epic bidding wars.
The 13th edition starting in the UAE has another angle to it, because of the situation. Sixty matches in 53 days, with around 500 persons from different time zones in a giant bio-secure bubble spread across three cities, amid global panic. Pulling it off will be a massive feather in the cap of the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, secretary Jay Shah and other elected office-bearers. A glitch or a clutch of positive Covid-19 tests can derail the mission. It is a challenge where success and failure both will have serious implications.
In 11 months as BCCI boss, Ganguly had got little to do before embarking on this. In the meantime, his and Shah's decision to wait for a Supreme Court verdict instead of quitting when their term got over raised eyebrows. Going ahead with IPL is seen in certain quarters as a money-making exercise, at the cost of domestic events, which remain uncertain. Ganguly's promise to raise pay for domestic players is still to see the light of the day. Critics can say, arguments against him are stacking up.
A successful IPL has the potential of silencing all the negative talk in one go. Ganguly and Shah can be hailed as the best president-secretary pair the BCCI has ever had in its 92 years of existence. They may also become esteemed leaders in global cricket administration, who defied unprecedented odds and organised an event everybody has been waiting for. The benefits of success can go beyond estimated proportions, just like failure can affect vital equations.
This is a calculated risk, not a gamble. Over fewer days and featuring much less games, Champions League football was held in Lisbon with eight teams in a bio-bubble. The IPL is a different ball game because of its volume, but the BCCI and franchises have taken impressive steps.
Creating a bio-secure capsule for English and Australian players to travel to Dubai from Manchester and spending Rs 10 crore on Covid-19 tests are signs of administrative efficiency and financial muscle, which are needed in equal measure if something of this scale has to be staged in the existing economic and social climate.
Before a ball has been bowled in the IPL, these efforts have been warmly received in BCCI circles. Presidents and secretaries of several state associations are praising Ganguly and Shah as men of vision and enterprise, with courage and conviction.
Following the Supreme Court reform order curbing the powers of elected officials in BCCI and making paid professionals more prominent, there is an urge in the board to show who the boss is. Images of the BCCI president handing over the trophy on November 10 will be a shot in the arm for that campaign. If that happens, a man who doesn't have fond memories of IPL as a player will become a hero of the same event in his new role.