In this weekend’s blog, I am back on India’s favourite sport, ie Cricket. As you all are aware that cricket is played in three formats- Test matches, One Day (50 over) matches, and 20-over matches (T20). Presently T20 is the most watched format across the cricket-playing nations. T20 matches are more interesting, mainly because it is considered as batsman’s game, people throng to stadiums and watch on TV channels, as in this type of format, the main aim of the batsman is to score runs at very fast pace. In this format role of bowler is mainly to restrict the batsmen from scoring runs, and while scoring runs at the faster pace the batsman is bound to commit some mistake and bowler gets the wicket. So there is entertainment for the spectators and TV audience.
As this format is entertaining, so all the cricket boards want their team to play more T20 matches because that attracts the spectators to the stadium, and TV audience and they become revenue-generating items. Apart from playing T20 International (T20I) matches among the national teams, many cricket boards have given their blessing for premiers leagues, where cricket boards auctions the teams, and team owner select the players to play in their team, the team owners have the liberty to choose a player in auctions, and each team can consist of local players and specific numbers of overseas players. All the cricket-playing countries have some sort of premier league in their country. The most popular cricket-playing national leagues are the Indian league and the Australian league. The Indian league is the most-watched T20 league in the world, it is known as the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The IPL was launched after India won the inaugural of ICC T20 World Cup 2007 in South Africa. It was launched in the year 2008 and as they say, the rest is history. It has successfully completed 15 seasons since its inception. Among the teams, Mumbai Indians, and Chennai Super Kings have been dominant clubs in completion. Mumbai Indians are the most successful franchise as they have won the titles 5 times, and on the other hand, Chennai Super Kings have won 4 times. Kolkata Knight Riders have won the title two times. Other teams which have won the title single time are Rajasthan Royals, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Deccan Chargers, Hyderabad, and Gujarat Titans.
The IPL has produced so many brilliant and eye-catching moments for the viewers. Today, it is the most-followed T20 tournament in the world.
Here are seven lesser-known facts about IPL:
1 Did you know? The most valuable Player Award has only been earned by two Indians. They are none other than Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. Foreign players have dominated the league more often.
2 Royal Challengers Bangalore are the first team in the history of IPL to score more than 250 runs and less than 50 runs in a single inning. This is indeed a crazy statistic.
3 Surprisingly, Piyush Chawla has held a unique record in that he has not bowled a no-ball for 386 overs, which is an impressive statistic.
4 AD de Villiers(Royal Challengers Bangalore) and Kieron Pollard (Mumbai Indians) are the only foreign players who have played more than 100 matches for the same franchise.
5 Did you know? One ball cost Star Sports Rs 21 lakhs. It is an insane amount! This amount has been spent by them in the last 2 seasons for telecasting one ball, despite having spent a staggering Rs 16347.5 million for the rights.
6 Virat Kohli is the leading run scorer in the cash-rich IPL. He has been involved in 3 massive partnerships aggregating more than 200 runs ( with Chris Gayle once and AB de Villiers twice.
7 Did you know? Harbhajan Singh has the most ducks in the history of the IPL. He has 13 ducks in his 12-year IPL career.
Hope you liked this blog about some unknown facts about IPL.
Waiting for your views on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
28th October 2022.