Cricket and its association with the Indian emotions is writ large on the faces of the common mass. People religiously worship cricket and this trend has been going on for years now. It is definitely more than just a game, where the cricketers are regarded as demigods and factually worshipped by the common man. The newest form of cricket, the Twenty20 format has of late created history in the arena of sports. After this new cricket format was introduced, people have gained more interest and thus the popularity graph is only going up.
The IPL (Indian Premier League) history, rather origin is quite exciting. The concept of IPL was initialized when Lalit Modi, the Vice President of the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) put forth his vision for the Indian Premier League.
Following the same format as that of the club football in Europe, particularly the English Premier League, IPL was launched as a competitive response to the Indian Cricket League (ICL) which was launched by the Zee Group. The DLF IPL has created history in the Indian cricket sphere, getting the required approval from the Indian Cricket Board. It has brought in huge scope for the entertainment industry as well. The Twenty20 cricket has come on the surface phenomenally after India won the Twenty20 World Cup. From then, India’s involvement with IPL has been rewarding and marvelous.
History of IPL
It was in late June 2007 that two men arranged for a meeting for discussing an interesting but different sporting event. It was Lalit Modi (Vice-President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India with Andrew Wildblood (International Management Group, the sports management bigwig) who participated in this history-creating discussion. Then in April 2008, the maiden IPL tournament which Modi had conceptualized and ideated was on the way to come on the forefront.
The month of February in 2008 experienced the hysterical player auction, created the not-so much needed media hype. The most powerful and rich diaspora of the India community came up in the bidding process. The bigwigs are from the corporate sector to the entertainment industry – who added all the needed lusture to the tournament. Whooping amounts for different players were being seen - $1.5m for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, $1.35m for Andrew Symonds, $950,000 for Ishant Sharma. Cricket could be so costly an affair – nobody could even think of. Everybody was waiting for recreating history in Indian cricket.
Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Shilpa Shetty - owner and co-owners of the Kolkata Knight Riders team; Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals respectively made this mega sports event all the more a success.
The grand news on IPL is that it has been able to make it to the fourth rank in the Forbes list of the world's hottest sporting properties. India will hold the third session of the IPL tournament, after the success in South Africa in 2009. People all excited, stage all set, players all ready – the DLF IPL 2010 is surely going to be a spectacular sports event.
