IPL: An inside story. Cricket & Commerce

Tr Vivek, Alam Srinivas

Description

Much like its commissioner Mr Lalit Modi, IPL from the very beginning has always been mired in controversies of all imaginable kinds. From Vijay Mallyas sacking of the team coach Charu Sharma for the teams poor performance in season one to the grand auction of international players for season two in Fort Aguda Beach Resort in Goa, Modi has been able to keep the interest alive by successfully marrying money with sports. This is a new kind of cricket, where players are auctioned and teams and players are owned by frnanchise owners. But this is also the cricket where players from U-19 get a chance to play with Sachin Tendulkar or Shane Warne.
IPL: An Inside Story takes a look at almost all the aspects of IPL from who actually first thought of such a tournament to the process of choosing the franchise owners, and from the socio-economic impact of the IPL on Indian society to the politics of shifting the venue of season two to South Africa.

Sujets

• Sports
• Críquet
• Warne
• League
• Recreation
• Entertainment
• Money
• Rich
• IPL
• BCCI
• Authority
• Corruption
• Cricket
• Management
• Sport

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 24 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788174369468
• Langue: English

Extrait

ALAM SRINIVAS TR VIVEK
Lotus Collection
2009/Alam Srinivas TR Vivek
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in India in April 2009
Second impression in April 2009
The Lotus Collection
An imprint of
Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.
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Design: Supriya Saran
ISBN: 978-81-7436-711-2
Typeset in Bembo by Roli Books Pvt. Ltd. and printed at Anubha Printers, Noida (UP)
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TR Vivek

To Tarak Sinha, our coach who insisted on catching practice with cement steps behind us. He said: If you fear the ball, it will bounce back and hit you anyway.
Alam Srinivas
Contents
It Just Wasn t Cricket
The Indian Promoters League
Skips, Slips and Sighs
From Gully Passions to Gilly Religion
A Dada Goes, One More Takes His Place
IPL or ICL (Indian Controversial League)
The King of Good Times
Index
About the Authors
RAJASTHAN ROYALS

Owners: Emerging Media Group (a consortium comprising Manoj Badale, Lachlan Murdoch, Suresh Chellaram), Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra
Franchise Cost: $67 million Current Valuation: $125 million Icon Player: None
Star Cast: Shane Warne, Shane Watson, Graeme Smith
Most Expensive Player: Mohammad Kaif ($675,000)
Glam Power: Ila Arun, former state CM Vasundhara Raje
Sponsor: Puma

KINGS XI PUNJAB

Owners: Preity Zinta, Karan Paul (Apeejay Surrendra Group), Mohit Burman (Dabur Group), Ness Wadia (Bombay Dyeing)
Franchise Cost: $76 million Current Valuation: NA Icon Player: Yuvraj Singh
Star Cast: Brett Lee, James Hopes, Kumar Sangakkara
Most Expensive Player: Irfan Pathan ($925,000)
Glam Power: Preity Zinta, Daler Mehndi
Sponsors: Kotak Mahindra, Coca-Cola, Provogue, 9x, Spice

MUMBAI INDIANS

Owners: Reliance Industries Ltd, Anshu Jain (Head, Global Markets, Deutsche Bank)
Franchise Cost: $111.9 million Current Valuation: $200 million Icon Player: Sachin Tendulkar
Star Cast: JP Duminy, Harbhajan Singh, Sanath Jayasuriya
Most Expensive Player: Sanath Jayasuriya ($975,000)
Glam Power: Hrithik Roshan
Sponsors: Adidas, Mastercard, Pepsi, Kingfisher, Royal Stag

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS

Owners: Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Jai Mehta
Franchise Cost: $75 million Current Valuation: NA
Icon Player: Sourav Ganguly
Star Cast: Mashrafe Mortaza, David Hussey, Brendon McCullum
Most Expensive Player: Ishant Sharma ($950,000)
Glam Power: SRK, Juhi Chawla, Rani Mukherjee, Arjun Rampal
Sponsors: Nokia, Reebok, Belmonte, Tag Heuer, HDIL

CHENNAI SUPER KINGS

Owner: India Cements
Franchise Cost: $91 million Current Valuation: NA
Icon Player: None
Star Cast: MS Dhoni, Mike Hussey, Mathew Hayden
Most Expensive Player: Andrew Flintoff ($1.55 million)
Glam Power: Tamil film star Vijay, Drums Sivamani, K Srikkanth
Sponsors: Reebok, Aircel, Peter England, Coromandel King, Radio One

DELHI DAREDEVILS

Owner: GMR Group
Franchise Cost: $84 million Current Valuation: NA
Icon Player: Virender Sehwag
Star Cast: Virender Sehwag, Glen McGrath
Most Expensive Player: Gautam Gambhir ($725,000)
Glam Power: Akshay Kumar
Sponsors: Hero Honda, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Religare, Kingfisher, Fever 104 FM

BANGALORE ROYAL CHALLENGERS

Owner: UB Group
Franchise Cost: $111.6 million Current Valuation: NA
Icon Player: Rahul Dravid
Star Cast: Kevin Pietersen, Dale Steyn, Robin Uthappa
Most Expensive Player: Kevin Pietersen ($1.55 million)
Glam Power: Cheerleaders from Washington Redskins NFL team, Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif
Sponsors: Royal Challenge, Reebok

HYDERABAD DECCAN CHARGERS

Owner: Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd Franchise Cost: $107 million
Current Valuation: NA
Icon Player: None
Star cast: Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds
Most Expensive Player: Andrew Symonds ($1.35 million)
Glam Power: Hansika Motwani Sponsor: Puma
It Just Wasn t Cricket
I t was so Kafkaesque. Existential, since one man was working against all odds to shape his own destiny. It was almost anarchic as things changed every few moments for no apparent reason. Finally, it was satirical as characters furthered selfish interests instead of looking at the bigger issues - security and national interests. Add petty politics, over-sized egos and arrogance, confusion, chaos, and cricket to this mix and what you have is a media earthquake, whose shock waves were felt across the cricketing globe - from West Indies to South Africa, England to Australia, with the epicentre in India.
Lalit Modi, the Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner, thrives in Kafkaesque and crisis situations. He had pulled off cricket s biggest and most expensive league, the IPL, within months in 2008. Therefore, he had no qualms to shift its venue for season two to South Africa within a month in 2009. Nothing seemed impossible for Modi. In fact, he kept a brave and smiling face throughout the controversy in March 2009.
However, it was the manner in which the key players, cricket observers and experts, fans and the country at large reacted that proved that IPL has, in many ways, become bigger than the nation. More importantly, Modi, aided by his mentor, Sharad Pawar, former president of the BCCI (Board for Control of Cricket in India), and powerful businessmen (like Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, owner of one of the IPL s eight teams, Mumbai Indians), had the audacity to literally hold the country to ransom.
Once India announced the dates for general elections and especially after the frightening attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan in March 2009, it should have been clear to everyone that holding the high-profile IPL tournament in April-May 2009 (when India went to polls) was fraught with security risks.
So, when BCCI initiated talks with the Centre about the IPL dates, the home ministry s response was that the league s second season should be held after the elections. This was despite the fact that some of the states, which had IPL city teams, were ready to hold the matches. According to BCCI insiders, no one said a complete No ; it was just a matter of which dates suited the Centre and the states.
In fact, Home Minister P Chidambaram wrote to the concerned states and set two pre-conditions: one that no central forces will be provided for cricket security and, two that the states have to first fulfil the security expectations of the Election Commission (EC) and its requirement of forces for holding the elections. The home minister was categorical that no state can shun the second condition.
Later, the Centre asked BCCI to shift IPL dates to May. When Rajiv Shukla, an MP and chairman of BCCI s Finance Committee, met Chidambaram, he found that the latter was not averse to the idea of allowing IPL to begin in May, instead of 10 April as scheduled. But the BCCI was adamant that it wanted the league to start in April; it wasn t willing to consider the shift to May.
BCCI s reasons for refusal were simple. IPL has nearly 60 matches and the logistics for organizing them in just over three weeks was extremely difficult, if not impossible. Plus, a shortened tournament in terms of period would have affected eyeballs and television viewership as several matches would have to be squeezed on some days. This would have affected sponsorship and other revenues.
Instead, the BCCI went back to the home ministry with a revised schedule, where matches weren t to be held in any of the cities either on the poll or election results dates. Confident that lobbying by Pawar, whose party was part of the Congress-led ruling coalition, would force the issue in BCCI s favour, Modi announced on 6 March 2009 that things had been sorted out and IPL would go ahead with new dates. He added that the opening and closing dates would remain 10 April and 24 May, respectively.
What Modi didn t realize was despite the revision, the states had still to contend with critical security-related issues. In fact, according to the home ministry only three states r