Every decision in T20 cricket should be an aggressive decision. It should be to try and get a hundred, it should be to try and take a wicket . . . It goes against human reactions. We have a safe nature. When you peg back you feel safe. But you should go the other way’

Every year in early April, two photographs were invariably spotted in the sports pages of English newspapers. One would show a county cricket match played in front of thousands of empty plastic seats and under dark, leaden skies. In the foreground there would normally be one or two spectators – old men wrapped up in winter clothing and a blanket, perhaps with a dog or a picnic hamper at their side, a Flask in their lap and a newspaper crossword in their hands. The other photograph would be of an IPL match, but rarely the cricket. Instead, it would show scantily clad cheerleaders, leaping in the air in celebration, pom-poms in hand, their perfectly made-up faces beaming at the camera, Fames, smoke, and confetti licking the side of the frame. Behind them would be thousands of rapt fans.

The comparison was so regularly rolled out that it quickly became
hackneyed. But it struck at the heart of a schism that would gnaw away at
English cricket: a collision of the old world and the new.

The IPL allowed players to earn more in six weeks than many had earned in their entire careers. The average IPL salary for international players in 2008 was £213,000 and the biggest was worth £750,000; many contracts vastly outstripped even the largest international alternatives at the time, estimated to be worth around £500,000. Happily for players of almost all nationalities, the IPL, played in April and May, came at a time of year when their schedules were generally quiet.

There were two major international teams where this wasn’t the case. Most severely afflicted were the West Indies, where international contracts were worth relatively little and player relations with the board were often terrible. Many players regularly chose club over country, rejecting central contracts from the board, and remained in India while weakened teams took to the Field in home internationals or on tours of England. Paradoxically, the very strength of West Indies in T20 meant that their Test team was particularly depleted by the format.

But the clash was starkest with England. The start of England’s home season clashed directly with the IPL. Each year, while the IPL got underway in India, several thousand miles away in England the traditional First-class season – played by the 18 counties, with origins in the 19th century – began. It was the ultimate contrast between the past and the future.

As the IPL season reached its climax,

England’s international summer would begin, typically with a series against one of international cricket’s smaller, poorer teams – New Zealand in 2008 and 2013, West Indies in 2009 and 2012, Bangladesh in 2010 and Sri Lanka in 2011 and 2014. These sides often arrived in England with depleted squads. eir leading players would only land in the country a couple of days before the Test series began: in 2008 Have New Zealand players missed warm-up matches in England to play in the IPL instead. Sometimes players would even be absent for the Tests completely.

English cricket’s opposition to the IPL ran deeper than it cared to admit. The IPL represented more than simply a challenge to the start of England’s
traditional season; it amounted to an assault on the notion that English
cricket, and what was considered its values and traditions, somehow still
represented the pinnacle of the sport.

For half a decade Kevin Pietersen, England’s best and brashest cricketer,
feuded with England over whether he would be allowed to embrace the IPL.
‘To me, it’s an English cricket problem,’ wrote Pietersen in his book. ‘A
problem about India. A problem with money.’

Cricket had originated in England and was spread to disparate parts of the globe on the vessels of the British Empire. For the large majority of the 20th century, England remained the sport’s focal point: its Financial and political force, even if England were seldom among the best international teams. Until 1993, England and Australia, the two old-world powers, both retained the power of veto in the body that became the ICC. England ‘has not got over the Raj hangover,’ said I.S. Bindra, then president of the BCCI at a famously tempestuous meeting at Lord’s in 1993. ‘We in the subcontinent want to prove to the rest of the world that whatever they can do, we can do better.’

When a marginal First-ball wide was followed by a high-risk knuckleball dispatched into the crowd by Jimmy Neesham, New Zealand required seven from the last four balls. But two yorkers and one slower ball bouncer left New Zealand requiring two from the last delivery. e ball from Archer was full and angled into the pads. Martin Guptill squeezed it out on to the leg side and set off for two. Fielding, which had played such a prominent role in the frantic last half an hour, was once again under the spotlight. Roy charged in from midwicket and made a perfect clean pick-up – only two balls previously his fumble had turned one into two. Roy’s throw was wayward but Buttler had the presence of mind to collect the ball and break the stumps in one clean and glorious motion. Guptill’s desperate dive left him meters short of the crease. Astoundingly, for the second time in the day, New Zealand had tied with England: both teams were level on 15 runs apiece from the Super Over. England only won because of the controversial tiebreaker: they had scored 26 boundaries to New Zealand’s 17. Yet, however unfathomable these fraught Final moments, it was entirely in keeping with England’s revolution that, even in a scrappy, low-scoring game, their ultimate triumph should come after scoring more boundaries than their opponents.