From being ideated and implemented by Lalit Modi in the year 2008, to becoming one of the richest sporting leagues in the world today-- the Indian Premier League (IPL) has become bigger, better, and richer each year. But Modi, who built IPL with his own rules, was later questioned and banned for life from it by the administration! In his new book 'Maverick Commissioner', journalist-author Boria Majumdar writes about Lalit Modi's exceptional journey and the business that IPL has turned into today.
"'Maverick Commissioner' is a riveting account of the IPL and the functioning of its founder, Lalit Kumar Modi. Did Modi have a long telephone conversation with a BCCI top brass the day he left India for good? What really was discussed? Is Lalit Modi the absent present for the IPL and Indian cricket?... 'Maverick Commissioner' documents things exactly as they happened. No holds barred and no questions left out. It doesn’t judge Lalit Modi. All it does is narrate his story. Who is the real Lalit Modi? Let the readers decide," reads a portion of the book's blurb.
Majumdar's book 'Maverick Commissioner' was launched at an event in Kolkata, India on June 16, 2022. Published by Simon and Schuster India, the book will soon be turned into a film by Vibri Motion Pictures. Here we share an excerpt from the book, published with permission from Simon and Schuster India.
'Maverick Commissioner' The mega auction is now an event. Much like the Indian national election, every television channel or digital medium gears up for it from weeks in advance. The host broadcaster sells slots like they would during a World Cup and it is reported on the front page of every newspaper the following day. Now in its 15th year, Modi’s imprint has only grown bigger and better. The players’ auction was his plan and something he had conceived against every opposition. He wasn’t ready to be bullied by the growing clamour in the country and had taken it all on himself to push through with the plan. The BCCI, for all practical purposes, was a silent spectator. They hadn’t stopped Modi and were only watching from the sidelines. Had things gone wrong, many would go for Lalit’s head. And if things turned out right, they would want a share of the glory. That’s always been Indian cricket and the IPL auction was no different. In this case, Lalit has been proved right. The auction is now a valued property and adds to the glamour of the IPL. Each time a paddle is raised at the auction table, each time Lalit Modi stands vindicated for what he had planned. And if we see there has hardly been any innovation since the time Modi had planned the first auction. In 2008, as Richard Madley, the first auctioneer, said in an interview on RevSportz, “We had sold things ranging from silver caskets to heritage items to everything but never had we auctioned cricketers before. It was a first and we were all apprehensive to start with.”
Madley now fondly remembers auctioning M.S. Dhoni and the first auction sheet is now a valued NFT, which he very proudly posts on social media. To think of it, it was all Lalit’s doing. No one in the BCCI had ever done an auction before and cricketers, in a society as sensitive as India, had never before been treated as commodities or gone under the hammer. Sachin Tendulkar, for example, is someone the Indians worship as god. To auction a god is sacrilegious. Lalit knew it could have a very different dimension as well. Sachin was human after all, and so was Dhoni. And every Indian would give an arm and a leg to own these legends. And if he could get the best in the country to compete in full public view to own these cricketers, it would be a spectacle like never before. It was an instinct and it turned out to be correct.
Some of India’s biggest industrialists clashing on an auction table is a spectacle the country had never seen. While industry wars are real, to see a Parth Jindal fight with an Akash Ambani or a Shaswat Goenka, all in good spirit, for a player, is fascinating viewing. That’s the bottom line, the successful creation of the ultimate cricketing spectacle that India was in search of. It is a sports property that can compete and outdo the soaps and serials that were once considered staple and in that sense woo the advertisers to invest in something different. At a macro level, it has significantly enhanced the size of the Indian sporting ecosystem making Indian cricket a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
In sport it is winner-takes-all and the auction module, it has been proved over time, is a winner. What Madley did in 2008 was repeated by Charu Sharma in 2022. The very same model has stood the test of time and that’s where Lalit stands vindicated. And that’s why in my Bidhan Sarani house in North Kolkata when we watch the auction in February 2022 and plan for our shows, someone from my team will inevitably end up mentioning Lalit Modi and ask the question what he must be feeling while watching the mega auction unfold? I haven’t spoken to Lalit for a while now and have no intention of doing so while writing this book. As far as I know him, he wouldn’t agree with some of my observations and things could come to a pass. It was just not needed. So I don’t know what he felt or if he watched the auction at all. But the truth is he was there somewhere in that auction room. The absent present. Each time the paddle went up for a player and each time we all held our breath in awe and amazement, Lalit was silently remembered for pulling off the greatest cricketing revolution of all.
It is not simply the good. It is the good and the bad. Each time there is a scandal in the IPL thoughts go back to Lalit. Conflict of interest, dreaded words in Indian cricket circles at the moment, is often traced back to Lalit Modi. He is the one who is the root of all evil. How could he create a hyper commercialised spectacle that has ruined India’s domestic cricket structure? The moment India loses a World cup or a Test series that follows the IPL, Lalit Modi trends on twitter. He is the one to be blamed for corrupting it all. By making the players hyper rich millionaires, he has destroyed the edifice of domestic cricket and in doing so has caused the game serious harm.
The narrative, in good and bad, remains the IPL. And inadvertently we keep going back to Lalit Modi. While the BCCI can remodel the IPL and give it more gloss and sheen, make it more valuable and viable, the foundations go back to 2008 and Modi. And that’s why he is the absent present.
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