How a national debacle gave birth to the Indian Premier League

From Bad Boys to World Champions

When the team had crashed out of the World Cup months earlier, the BCCI reprimanded all the players and called them undisciplined bad boys. Now they were showered with crores and crores of money from all quarters of the nation.

The BCCI seemed to sweep all the negativity under the carpet and heralded a brave new team under a brave new captain. They will never admit it, but the BCCI did not expect Dhoni to be the success that he was.

While there was talk of sacking Rahul Dravid as the captain, they were not sure who should take over. Tendulkar famously suggested Dhoni but the BCCI were skeptical. (How a national debacle gave birth to the Indian Premier League)

After seeing Dhoni’s impressive performances in the initial matches of the World Cup, the BCCI suddenly announced that Dravid will be steeping down and Dhoni will be taking over as captain of the 50 over format as well.

And the plans for that T20 league that they were discussing suddenly went into overdrive. All of a sudden the league was decided to kick start in 2008.

Today we know that T20 league as the Indian Premier Legaue.

It is funny how the best things come from the most unexpected quarters. No body could have imagined that the debacle in the Caribbean would start a chain of events that would end up in the IPL.

The IPL has transcended not only Indian cricket but world cricket as a whole. Bucket loads of money came into the game and now players were happy to be just goo enough for the IPL. Many people agree while many disagree with what the IPL has done to cricket.

But you cannot deny the impact that it has had.