What is the reason why the Indian Premier League has been such a hit
For the IPL that it has taken off in a country whose cricket board was not happy with the very structure of T20 tells us that the story of the tournament's success is an expression of the powerful combination of serendipity and opportunity.
Since 2008, a lot of famous cricketers in the world have been taking their time away from international and domestic cricket in order to take part at the Indian Premier League (IPL) which takes place mostly during two months, between March between March and May. The short version is that during this time , the IPL is the main focus of the world's cricketers to the general public. Although, looking back, it is likely that cricket's viewership would require a smaller format, it wasn't clear at the time. Actually, it's somewhat unbelievable today that people like the BCCI and India were not awestruck by T20's appeal at first.
The primary reason for the popularity of the all ipl winners and T20 format and T20 format, as has been the case with many commercial products, is due to timing. In the early part of the millennium, the final source of public support for the first-class cricket game in England began to witness lower attendances. Particularly, the younger generations were moving to different sports over cricket. The marketing manager at the ECB, Stuart Robertson, recommended looking into a compact format that would be more in tune with the current demand for time. In the year following, despite some opposition from the county chairmen, on following of some last-over-slogging the format was able to find the middleman .
International cricket did not take the format seriously . In fact, the first T20 international had hilarious scenes. There was also mock red cards to Glenn McGrath for impersonating the famous underarm incident.
Within a few years, most nations had been playing their debut T20 match, attracting the attention of both disbelief from their fans. India was one of the last "big" nations to play its inaugural T20 game. The game, which was played in the domestic version was a sloppy skim . "T20? Why isn't ten-ten or five-five as well as one?" thundered Niranjan Shah during the 2006 International Cricket Council (ICC) board conference, before boldly proclaiming that India would not ever play the format. There was a rival Indian Cricket League, which gained momentum, was swiftly put out of business in the hands of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
While at the same time, the ODI format had stalled. Australia were sleepwalking to their third successive World Cup and was the standout team in a format that had few surprises remaining; the various attempts of the ICC to bring the game to life (supersub superseries, superseries and experimenting on field restrictions and etc.)) didn't hit the spot. India, quite disastrously, got knocked out in the group stage, rendering the tournament less appealing to the various stakeholders. The farcical World Cup final in 2007 World Cup final served as an excellent example of all that went wrong with the over-milked cash cow that was the ODI format.
In this situation there that the T20 format captured the public's imagination. It's hard to believe that India were not keen about putting on a team the inaugural World T20 and had to be subtly forced to do so by the former ICC director Ehsan Mani. India grudgingly sent a squad which smelled like the disdain of BCCI disliked the new model. The team, helmed by an untrained Greenhorn MS Dhoni, did not have the superstars of the field .
Because the IPL does not compete with existing domestic structures of many countries that play cricket, the presence of stars has been all but ensured. In the West Indies players are some of the most sought-after T20 stars and the clashes between board and players can only help the IPL's cause. This is also the reason for the affectionate relationship of the English cricketing establishment and the IPL which English players are either needed to choose all ipl winners over domestic obligations, or overlooked completely. The IPL become the perfect storm and become an unbeatable league in cricket.
