A Visionary Par Excellence: Dr Chandra’s concept of league cricket was a marvel, led to IPL’s success

Today, league cricket is immensely popular around the world. League cricket has become huge, and everyone connects it to the Indian Premier League (IPL). But, in fact, even a year before the IPL began, another league was launched. That league was the first of its kind and perhaps no one in India could have thought about it at the time. It was the Indian Cricket League (ICL), which can be rightly called the initiator of league cricket in India, and the idea behind it was of Dr. Subhash Chandra, Chairman of the Essel Group.

It was the time when India had been eliminated in the first round of the One Day Cricket World Cup. While cricket lovers in the country were in grief, Dr. Chandra decided to introduce the fans to a new flavour and spirit—league cricket and the Indian Cricket League (ICL). ICL had teams based on cities, and the same concept was adopted in IPL later. Players from different countries, colourful clothing, floodlights, and a white ball, the first T20 cricket league was launched. The doyens of cricket, like Kapil Dev and Brian Lara, were associated with the Indian Cricket League (ICL).

The BCCI wasn’t enthusiastic about T20 cricket at that time and not sure about its success. But Dr. Chandra’s foresight saw that this was the future of cricket. No one had imagined that league cricket would not just transform T20, but the world of cricket itself. At the time, no one thought that this new format could become so huge.

Dr. Chandra also mentioned this in 2016. He said, “Yes, the IPL became successful because of the ICL. And the Board of Control for Cricket in India has made a lot of money from it.”

As per ICL format, each team could have four foreign players, eight junior players, and two international players. The format was specifically designed to give junior Indian players the opportunity to play with players from Indian teams as well as other countries and learn from their experience.

The IPL was launched in 2008 and has grown exponentially since then. Now, the BCCI earns thousands of crores of rupees from broadcast rights alone. But when the ICL launched in 2007, no one had even thought about it. In fact, ICL initiated league cricket which has transformed cricket and given it the eminence and popularity it now commands.