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The above verse is in Bengali, but it is neither a Bengali
movie song, nor a poem. It is the opening lines of the promotional
song of the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Indian Premier League
(IPL) team owned by Shah Rukh Khan. But then, what has cricket
to do with a promotional song? With the IPL championship
having come to an end, the game of cricket experienced a
sea of change. The game which used to be played over a period
of five days with men in white uniforms playing in the field
has seen a lot of changes in the last 30-odd years, the
latest being the advent of the Twenty20 format, the more
glamorous and more exciting form of cricket. Along with
it have come new things in cricket as seen never before,
such as cheerleaders, the presence of live Disc Jockey,
and newer rules specifically designed to create more fun.
And the most important thing which is flowing in is the
money. Be it in the form of advertisements, sponsorships,
endorsements, official rights (such as media) or player
salaries, there is a huge influx of money in the game. This
article tries to look into those marketing aspects of the
recent changes in the game of cricket with a special focus
on the IPL series.
There is a considerable amount of confusion about the origin
of the word `cricket' with respect to the game, and lots
of possible origins have been suggested for the word. The
first ever international cricket match was a first class
match between Canada and the US in September 1844. The longest
and oldest international form of cricket is test cricket.
The name `Test' was assigned to it because of the game being
a challenge of endurance and competency. The first official
test match took place from March 15 to March 19, 1877, between
England and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG,
Australia), which resulted in Australia winning by 45 runs.
The International Cricket Council (ICC), the governing body
of international cricket grants test status to a country
based upon certain criteria. (Refer Table 1 for a list of
test playing nations).
The limited over cricket matches did not start out as a
planned venture. Though the game was more of an experiment,
it became popular among the crowds and thus originated the
Limited Over Internationals which were later renamed as
One Day International (ODI).
T20 cricket was first introduced in the UK in 2003 with
the purpose of popularizing the English County Cricket by
the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), in 2003. The
rules were almost the same as that of traditional cricket
with a few exceptions. T20 became popular across the test
playing nations, the main reason being its small time span,
for which spectators did not have to waste one whole day
(as in ODI) or more (as in test), but still got to view
a full match. Most of the test playing nations started their
own domestic T20 tournaments. The first international T20
took place at the Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand on
February 17, 2005 and the competing teams were Australia
and New Zealand. The rising popularity of the T20 format
initiated the ICC to organize the ICC World Twenty20, which
was similar to the World Cup Cricket with all test playing
nations and some more ICC approved national teams participating
in it. The tournament was held from September 11-24, 2007,
in South Africa and India won it after defeating Pakistan
in the final.
While most of the test playing nations (including Pakistan)
were having domestic T20 tournaments, India was reluctant
to have its own till the ICC pressed India to do so. Thus,
in April 2007, the first domestic T20 tournament was held
which was named Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and was won by Tamil
Nadu after defeating Punjab in the finals. The Indian national
side played its first T20 match against South Africa in
Johannesburg on December 1, 2006 which India won by six
wickets. The first professional T20 league in India was
announced by Subhash Chandra, the owner of Zee Networks.
Thus, Indian Cricket League (ICL) came into being and its
list of players included international stars such as Inzamam-ul-Haq,
Brian Lara, Lance Klusener, Craig McMillan, Chris Harris,
Marvan Attapatu, Chris Cairns and Nicky Boje. The inaugural
season was held at Chandigarh in November 2007. The tournament
was sponsored by Microsoft, TCI, Provogue and Sab Miller.
The tournament, however, was shunned by the Board of Control
for Cricket in India (BCCI), who announced that the players
who would be joining the ICL will not be allowed to play
for the Indian national team and they did not allow the
ICL to be held at the stadiums under the control of BCCI.
However, ICL picked up in the second season where the matches
were played at two new venues, The Panchkula Stadium at
Gurgaon and the Lal Bahadur Stadium at Hyderabad. Crowds
were coming to the stadium and the telecast was being done
in two channels, Zee Sports and Ten Sports. But the TV viewership
was not very high according to aMap ratings.
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