It is fitting that the UAE is hosting this year’s edition of the IPL. The sixes, glamour, and big money of Sharjah wrote the playbook for contemporary cricket
At the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 auction held last December, Rajasthan Royals transformed Yashasvi Jaiswal’s world by buying him for $340,000.
In 1981, the CBFS (Cricketers Benefit Fund Series) in Sharjah eased Madhav Mantri’s life by presenting him with a purse of $50,000. Cricket in Sharjah was a preview of the IPL in many ways. Never mind that a dollar was worth just about Rs 9 in 1981.
So it is fitting that the latest edition of the league is being played in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - it also hosted some games of the 2014 tournament.
“Rishtey me to hum aapke precursor hote hai,” an apparition from the desert may just whisper in the ears of IPL boss Brijesh Patel. The man who started it all was not a spectral presence, but the white robed, flesh and blood Abdulrahman Bukhatir. The current chairman of the Bukhatir Group grew up in Pakistan and fell in love with cricket. When Bukhatir became a successful businessman in the UAE, he brought the sport to the region. Not just that, he seemed to care about the financial security of cricketers and paid them nest eggs to the tune of $50,000, unheard of those days.
Atmosphere wise too, Sharjah was a trailer for the IPL. Multi-cultural stars like Viv Richards, Kapil Dev and Imran Khan played in front of glamourous crowds featuring filmstars and socialites. Dawood Ibrahim was also a regular. He was a ‘mere’ smuggler then, not a terrorist. Once, when he went to the Indian dressing room to offer each player a Toyota in the event of victory, Kapil asked him to leave the team’s sanctum sanctorum. For the record, Kapil said he did not know the interloper’s identity.
Remember Blofeld?
Sharjah was also one of the first tournaments with a visible and engaged female following, immortalised by the English commentator Henry Blofeld as the “earrings and glasses” crowd. Many years on, the IPL too drew women fans to the game with its short format and ‘cricketainment’ mix.
Bukhatir warmed up as a cricket organiser in the 1970s with small tournaments, including the Bukhatir League for local teams. In the 80s, he went for the big time, surely fired up at some level by the success of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in Australia.
In 1981, the first ever CBFS match was played between Gavaskar XI and Miandad XI. The beneficiaries were Mantri, who was Gavaskar’s uncle, and Pakistan’s Asif Iqbal and Hanif Mohammad.
In 1984, CBFS got a sponsor on board, Rothmans tobacco, and held arguably its first big tournament, the Asia Cup. Gavaskar, sporting a Dennis Lillee style handlebar moustache, led India to victory. It was one of the team’s notches in a glorious streak that started with the 1983 World Cup win.
A cricket lodestar
Over two decades, with frequent tournaments that milked the India-Pakistan rivalry, Sharjah, against all odds, became the top venue for one-day cricket. Until February 2018, it held the record for hosting the most number of ODI games (236).
India suffered heartbreak and struck oil in equal measure in the desert. There was an initial run of defeats against Pakistan (We are not going to talk about the last ball sixer. The man has suffered enough, and unfairly).
But later Indian teams flipped things around. And not just against Pakistan. Sachin Tendulkar’s back to back ‘Desert Storm’ hundreds against Australia in 1998 are a playbook for much of what you see in the IPL today.
After Mantri, several Indian players got benefit matches in Sharjah. But after the match-fixing scandal, the venue came on the anti-corruption radar. Tainted as a possible nerve centre of betting and fixing, Sharjah became an outcast. Now it is back. And there is no Indian player or fan that is not wistful for the place, for everything that it took but also gave.