Maybe it is the police bodyguard. Maybe it is the two BlackBerrys that he checks constantly and the four sugars he demands in his tea with the urgency of an addict. But there is something about Lalit Modi, observes The Times, "that suggests a reservoir of pressurised energy". Already considered by many to be the most powerful man in cricket, the Indian Premier League (IPL) founder is bent on global domination.
He is "a modern Charlemagne, with a little touch of Frederick the Great", says one pundit. But others accuse him of selling cricket's soul to make a quick buck. Modi's innovation is Twenty20 cricket: a high-octane, high-intensity version of the game, which he's convinced will win converts in their billions.
With its billionaire club owners, international star players and Bollywood swagger, there's certainly no lack of razzle-dazzle. In 2008, he introduced cheerleaders to the game, causing a storm among conservatives. This year he forged a deal with YouTube to show live IPL matches online. "I see IPL becoming bigger than the US National Football League and the English Premier League."
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But Cricket's Mr Big is "a man who could divide the Red Sea", says The Independent. Everybody in India has an opinion about Lalit, 46, notes the Hindustan Times: "they either love him or they hate him". Some maintain he was the force of nature needed to reinvigorate cricket. However, his enemies have spared no efforts to dig up dirt. In 2007, they went to court to try and oust him from India's cricketing governing body citing a conviction for cocaine possession, and assault and kidnapping while he was a student at Duke University in the US in 1986, says the South African Sunday Times. But the court ruled it would be unfair to judge him on his youthful indiscretions.
Born into a wealthy Delhi trading family, Lalit Modi has always possessed a Houdini-esque ability to get out of trouble. Not many people can talk their way out of a two-year prison sentence in South Carolina. Modi managed it. Barely a year later, he talked his way into the job of president of the Indian International Tobacco Company while still in his early 20s. He also married one of his mother's friends, Minal his senior by some years.
The idea for the IPL had been gestating in Modi's mind ever since his student days. But when he suggested a new "limited over" league in 1994, the Indian cricket board rejected it out of hand. Modi marked time by moving into TV: launching two sports pay channels. Then, in 2005, he seized his chance to join the Rajasthan Cricket Association, concealing his true identity to get elected.
In 2007, Modi finessed his way to become vice-president of the Indian cricket board and lost no time turning his pet project into reality. By the time the first ball was bowled nine months later, the tournament had already generated $2bn from the sale of TV rights, team franchises and other licences. Today the league is worth $4bn plus. Cricket is another religion in India, says Modi. He finds promoting it very "enriching" in every sense of the word.
'A successor to Ghandi in Gucci loafers'
Has Lalit Modi destroyed Test cricket? He's certainly launched a circus that makes Kerry Packer's 1970 World Series experiment look tame, says The Sydney Morning Herald. And that's before anyone gets out on the field. The ownership of IPL teams is a heady mix of corporate moguls and movie stars: the Mumbai team franchise is owned by tycoon Mukesh Ambani; the Kolkata Knight Riders by Bollywood heart-throb Shah Rukh Khan. They compete for players in exciting one-day auctions: the best fetch around $1m and can earn around $200,000 a day.
Count me out of this sensationalist rubbish, says cricket author Michael Simkins. "Soon it will be 10/10, 5/5, then one ball to hit a six or you're hanged." Yet the implication that "the most profound of all team games is also the purest has, alas, been a myth from the days of WG," says Christopher Martin-Jenkins in The Times. There's nothing wrong with Twenty20 per se. "It is cricket, just different cricket. And vive la diffrence, so long as it is not overdone." The trouble is that the IPL continues to hold the International Cricket Council to ransom: it gets players on its own terms, when it wants them. And unless Lalit Modi limits the amount of Twenty20 cricket, Test cricket will suffer.
Modi claims to be as big a fan of the epic five-day test as the next man, says The Times of India. But that's unlikely to sway him nor should it. He should be congratulated for putting India properly on the map. The IPL has become "an emblem" of the country's aspiration, agrees The Times. And Modi is the "father of this new India a successor to Gandhi, in Gucci loafers".
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