Taking The Sport Beyond The Metros

The hyper-local leagues like the KPL and the TNPL play twin roles: they act as the feeder for both the IPL teams and state squads, and they help in SPREADING THE GAME TO THE REMOTE AREAS of the state.

- K.C. Vijaya Kumar

Long before the Indian Premier League’s drumbeats cast a spell on the cricket fans, a hyper-local domestic Twenty20 tournament, with a few foreign players, was unveiled at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on August 19, 2005. Titled the Unibic Twenty20 Bradman Cup, the event marked the baby steps of cricket’s shortest format in the country.

The then Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) secretary, Brijesh Patel, said: “Twenty20 is here to stay. When one-day cricket was launched three decades ago, people dismissed it as pyjama cricket, but it has done well and has become enormously popular, and we are sure that given the time constraints that people face, Twenty20 cricket too will find great support. People can see three hours of cricket, and it is like going out for a dinner. We at the KSCA are proud to host the first Twenty20 tournament in India.”

THE FORMER INDIA BATSMAN was spot on with his forecast of Twenty20’s future in India. Eventually, the stakes got higher, and the IPL commenced in 2008 with the maiden clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The tournament, then described by Rahul Dravid as a domestic event with an international flavour, has become a behemoth, drawing in the brands and big bucks.