The daily fantasy cricket in India is now quite common amongst the cricket lovers. One of the most hyped and popular game is IPL T20.

The Indian Premier League changed the way cricket is played in India and also the online fantasy cricket. It has brought in huge scope for the entertainment industry as well. Twenty20 cricket became phenomenally popular after India won the Twenty20 World Cup in 2007 and the IPL has since then cashed on the craze. From then on, India’s involvement with IPL fantasy league has been rewarding and marvellous.

Initialized by the then BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi, the IPL launched in 2008 as a competitive response to the Indian Cricket League (ICL).

Following the same format as that of English Premier League and the National Basketball League (NBA) of the US, the maiden IPL tournament which Modi had conceptualized and idea was on the way to come on the forefront in 2008.

IPL works on a franchise-system
The IPL works on a franchise-system based on the American style of hiring players and transfers. These franchises were putting for auction, where the highest bidder won the rights to own the team, representing each city.

The auction for the same took place on January 24, 2008 and the total base price for the auction was $400 million. The auction went on to fetch $723.59 million.

The Mumbai franchise owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) was the most expensive franchise – fetching $111.9 million closely following Vijay Mallya’s United Breweries which paid $111.6 million for the Bangalore franchise.

Media house Deccan Chronicle won the Hyderabad chapter of the IPL for $107 million, while India Cements’ Chennai franchise cost $91 million.

Bollywood also made its presence felt with two of its leading stars bagging the ownership of their respective teams – Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla’s Red Chillies Entertainment buying out Kolkata for $75.09, while Preity Zinta and her beau Ness Wadia bought the Mohali team for $76 million.

Infrastructure development group GMR bagged the ownership of the Delhi team for $84 million and the Emerging Media, consisting of its CEO Fraser Castellino, Manoj Badale and Lachlan Murdoch and other investors won the rights for the Jaipur franchise for $67 million.

The maiden edition of IPL had eight teams comprising a minimum of 16 players each. The tournament lasted for 44 days and involved 59 matches.

IPL Teams for the First Edition:
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Rahul Dravid named the captain and Venkatesh Prasad made the coach of the team.

Kings XI Punjab: Yuvraj Singh named the captain with Tom Moddy as the coach of the team.

Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni named the captain and Kepler Wessels became the coach.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Sourav Ganguly named the captain and John Buchanan became the coach.

Deccan Chargers: VVS Laxman named the captain and Robin Singh became the coach.

Mumbai Indians: Sachin Tendulkar named the captain and Lalchand Rajput as the coach.

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag named the captain and Shipperd turned to be the coach.

Rajasthan Royals: Former Australian spin bowler Shane Warne named both the captain and coach of Rajasthan Royals.

Enjoy reading and playing fantasy cricket matches!