On A Board: No Permit To Rebels

The BCCI is stamping out unauthorised T20 leagues through harsh diktats. At stake is its mastery over Indian cricket.

- Qaiser Mohammad Ali

At exactly 12.45 pm on April 3, 2007, a letter from Zee TV owner Subhash Chandra lands in the fax machine of then BCCI president Sharad Pawar. A couple of hours later, Chandra announces plans for the ambitious Indian Cricket League (ICL) in New Delhi—a step that forced the BCCI, which was aware of the impending ‘unauthorised’ league, to wake up from deep slumber and act.

In the three-page letter, Chandra reminded Pawar that he had ‘cautioned’ him over the phone on March 18, 2007, about a cricket “initiative that Essel Group was planning”. “This [ICL] I see as an inevitable necessity in the present context of the game in India and of the changes and the modifications needed in its contents and models from the search for new talent to innovative playing methods,” Chandra said. “Thus, I am conceiving the ICL as a transparent and innovative laboratory, off the establishment-managed cricket field, for the game and its promotion and remodelling.”

ICL was the first major unauthorised—that is, unapproved by the Board, the top body that makes cricketing decisions in India—tournament that challenged the BCCI’s authority, though it shut shop after only two seasons, with several players and officials remaining unpaid. Shaken, the BCCI—or more precisely, then BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi—renewed the push for his pending proposal with the Board for an inter-city 50-over league. But after ICL, Modi changed the format to 20 overs an innings and convinced Pawar to give him a Rs 200-crore ‘loan’ to start the IPL in 2008. The rest is history.