The commercial power base of world cricket is about to take its dominance to another level.
The Indian cricket board will take the colored uniforms and condensed format from Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket — which was revolutionary in the 1970s — and revolutionize it. It's been repackaged into the tighter Twenty20 — just 20 overs per innings — and sold to the highest bidders.
Slated to make its debut in April-May — usually the offseason for cricket on the subcontinent — the Indian Premier League is forcing the game's governing body to make room for it on the international calendar or risk losing star players to the lure of money.
And there's plenty of that in India, which has a population of 1.1 billion people and the world's biggest cricket audience.
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