WATCHING the Indian Premier League unfold in 2022, after all it has gone through in the past two years, I couldn’t help but reflect on how the T20 format of the game of cricket began. It started so innocently and has burgeoned into a great entertainment spectacle that is a massive money-spinner, not only to its players, but the industry associated with it.
In the late 90s, the English Cricket Board was concerned with dwindling gates at county matches that started it thinking along the lines of a reduced form of cricket. However, the 18 first-class counties plus Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) that formed the game’s powerbase at the time did not agree with the idea and it was shelved.
Nonetheless, by 2001, the financial concerns reached alarming proportions because of the continued drastic drop in attendance at the three-day first-class games. Survival was of paramount importance.
The ECB got to work, and scheduled interviews with a wide range of people, to help discover the reasons for the falling-away in attendance.
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