The Mercenary Era

2007 WC was a disaster for India. Lost the first level matches - even to Bangladesh - and got kicked out right there just after three games. An aging team, captained by a player who may not fit the tempo of that time, not well fitted for modern terms of the game. Not many replacements were found in India either. Yeah, no matches to what the little island below had to offer.

At the same time, T20 cricket was knocking every door. It was becoming popular every day. 

And needless to say that the Indian crowd was highly unsatisfied. They expected to see better cricket. They were thirsty but nothing suited for consumption other than the poison of hatred towards the players. Nothing else was available there (we know they don't cheer the runner's up SL for sure).

It was under these circumstances that some bunch of people got together in discussion. The bureaucratic sloth bears in BCCI may never see the light for years and they thought that they should take the matters in hand. India was becoming rich so it was surely a lucrative operation worth trying. Thirst was there but lacked any supply for the demand. It was a business opportunity.

It is unclear whose idea it was. But gotta be a damn good one. But it is very likely to have got shaped pretty much in the mind of then chairman of National Cricket Academy and the biggest cricket veteran sitting there.

You must have guessed it. Play a T20 cup. Play franchises. Play foreign players. Play for money, pay good money and earn good money. In return wake up Indian cricket and make it really good for them.

It was not IPL. It was ICL, that never to be league of Zee TV. The think tank thought BCCI will be happy for their commitment for the nation at the harshest moments of history and would support their plan. What came out was threatening bans and almost certainly theft of intellectual property.

I hate mercenary cricket and I wish that meeting never took place. for it changed the world cricket, partially caused the ruin of SL cricket and really impacted all the other nations in bad ways (scheduling issues, loyalty issues, players leaving national cricket, early retirements, etc etc). But I have to admit that it is singly the biggest reason for the gap between Rahul Dravid's India and Virat Kohli's India in 13 years.

ICL died in the hands of BCCI but the format was replicated in not only IPL but zillion other cricket nations all over the solar system and milky way for that matter, well, only those have functional cricket administration. Not the few dead ones.

Today, that veteran man who pretty much certainly was behind this brilliant idea is somewhere in an Indian hospital after suffering from a heart attack. This is not the only story you can write about Kapil Dev but pretty rare this would be remembered today.

Get well soon big boy.