Asia | In a different league

The end of cricket’s Indian monopoly

The Indian Premier League is a model for other tournaments 

A pro Kabaddi match in action in India
Photograph: Imago
|MUMBAI|3 min read

WALK INTO any room in India with a screen from now until the end of May and you will find yourself watching the Indian Premier League (IPL), a wildly popular cricket tournament that is by some measures the world’s most lucrative sports league after America’s National Football League. Until a few days before it started, late last month, the same screens would have been showing the Women’s Premier League (WPL),IPL’s women’s counterpart. Early March also saw the inaugural season of the Indian Street Premier League—cricket played with a yellow tennis ball.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “In a different league”

From the April 6th 2024 edition

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