India had won only two – including one against East Africa – of their 13 ODIs in the 1970s. They did not host an ODI in the entire decade. By the time they did that, in 1981/82, they became the last among all contemporary Test-playing nations to host an ODI.
They would show a similar attitude towards Twenty20 in the early days of the format.
ODI moment 1: World Cup 1983
That changed on 25 June, 1983, when two separate events took place at Lord’s. The obvious impact of the final has been discussed in detail over the past few decades – and even a recent movie had been made. But something almost as significant took place just before the match began.
NKP Salve, then BCCI President, was left fuming at being denied extra passes for the final. More than the incident, it was the behaviour of the officials that had left Salve fuming. Until then, no team other than England had hosted the Men’s World Cup. Salve vowed to change this monotony.
ODI moment 2: World Cup 1987
He helped form the Asian Cricket Council in no time, with help from Noor Khan of Pakistan and Gamini Dissanayake of Sri Lanka. The Asia Cup – the first intracontinental cricket tournament – was launched. As it became a regular affair, the Austral-Asia Cup was launched.
With Reliance as sponsors, India and Pakistan jointly hosted the 1987 World Cup.
For the first time, England and Australia’s supremacy in world cricket was challenged. While this was significant, the triumph was not India’s alone. It belonged to a cohesive Asian faction.
ODI moment 3: India vs South Africa, 1991/92
The journey towards India’s success began with an ODI series in 1991/92. The series, typically remembered for South Africa’s return from exile, is significant in the history of Indian cricket as well. Ali Bacher, the South African manager, paid the BCCI USD 120,000 for broadcasting rights in South Africa.
This was a significant moment. Until then, the BCCI did not make money from cricket matches involving India. In fact, they occasionally paid Doordarshan. Now, for the first time, they figured out that they had been sitting on a gold mine all along.
Off the field, the Asian faction had managed to find allies at the ICC. By now, ICC meetings were being held outside England; the MCC President ceased to become the automatic ICC chairman, and England and Australia had lost their veto power at the ICC.
ODI moment 4: Hero Cup, 1993
In 1993, the Cricket Association of Bengal hosted the Hero Cup, a five-nation ODI tournament. The BCCI sold the rights to Trans World International (TWI), who were paying more than Doordarshan. The government of India got involved, citing the ancient 1885 Indian Telegraph Act – all after the tournament had started.
Neither channel yielded. The Indian fans were unable to catch live telecast anywhere. When South African fans did not get to see their match against Zimbabwe, Bacher stepped in, threatening to withdraw his country’s support for the 1996 World Cup in the subcontinent. Things almost reached a stage when Nelson Mandela was attempting to reach Indian Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.
The fans finally got to see the match after the Supreme Court stepped in, but the Hero Cup ended up making the telecast of Indian cricket an open market.
ODI moment 5: World Cup 1996
In 1996, India co-hosted the World Cup again, this time with Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They had managed to acquire the necessary support.
Until a year before the World Cup, there had been uncertainty over the broadcaster of the 1996 World Cup. TWI might have got away in 1993, but Doordarshan was not willing to concede. Then, in February 1995, Justices PB Sawant, BP Jeevan Reddy, and S Mohan decreed that ‘the right to impart and receive information is a species of the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.’
That changed everything. Mark Mascarenhas of WorldTel moved swiftly to acquire television rights for the World Cup from the three host boards (these were still not officially ICC World Cups).
But the 1996 World Cup brought about another significant change.
The BCCI had not understood the magnitude of the Indian family audience for a long time. They had tried and rejected the experiment of playing under lights in the 1980s. Until 1991, they had only one venue for floodlit ODIs – the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi, which was not even a cricket ground.
In the Hero Cup, Hyderabad and Calcutta hosted ODIs under lights. Five more – Gwalior, Bombay, Bangalore, Madras, and Mohali – were added in the 1996 World Cup. In 1996 alone, India hosted 12 day-night matches. Every match had incredible – by 1996 standards – viewership records.
Day-night one-day cricket had become entertainment in India. Not only was it competing with other sports, but also with other television programmes. With cable television taking rapid strides across the nation, revenue poured in.
The one-day moment that got away
Lalit Modi, having recently returned from the USA, wanted something different in 1996: an inter-city one-day tournament.
Modi’s brainchild involved city-based privately-owned teams, Indian and overseas cricketers, floodlit 50-over matches for four to six weeks a year. He wanted to glamourise cricket, to package the tournament as cricket entertainment.
In other words, he planned a 50-over version of what we know as the IPL. Unfortunately, the BCCI were not too keen. The idea was shelved for well over a decade. When it was launched, it changed the economics of cricket, perhaps forever.
IPL helped India win the decades-long, off-the-field struggle for cricketing supremacy, at least for now. However, as India’s 1,000th ODI looms, one cannot help but wonder what might have happened, had India launched the IPL back then.
Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor at CricketNews and co-author of Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town.
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