Jazzing up domestic cricket

Along with the introduction of Power Plays and Supersubs, the Challenger Trophy, beginning in Mohali on October 10, will also see a number of other firsts in Indian domestic cricket. A tournament that wasn't even telecast last season will see international television coverage, an unprecedented scale of sponsorship and extensive marketing and promises to set a new benchmark for domestic cricket in India.

IS Bindra, the former board chief who is currently the president of the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), has already spoken about the "breakthrough" in terms of sponsorship of the event and hinted that "'the profit would be approximately that of a one-day international". They might have had only 12 days at their disposal, but the PCA, who sold the telecast rights, sponsorship and in-stadia advertisement to Nimbus, appear to have managed a large catch. Apart from a title sponsor - Kingfisher, the breweries giant - they also roped in sponsors for the three teams: Airtel, the cellular service provider, for India Seniors, Alchemist, a pharma major, for India A and Kingfisher for India B.

Bindra also claims that the television coverage of the tournament could be a significant beginning for first-class cricket and even compared it to the landmark moment in 1992-93, when the board, under his leadership, won the battle against Doorsarshan for uplinking rights. "This tournament will be telecast in more countries than the 1996 World Cup," he said, "domestic cricket has a huge scope and it's high time we realised that."

Zee Sports will telecast the event and ten channels - including Zee Sports, Zee UK, Ten Sports, ATN-Canada, Directive TV-USA - will beam quality television pictures across most Test-playing nations, Canada and parts of Africa. Ten Sports will enable viewers in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the middle-east region to watch the tournament.

The producers, Nimbus, have had experience with several major cricket tournaments, including the 1999 and 2003 World Cups, and have promised coverage that will rival international contests. The telecast will also feature the Cricket Café programming initiative from Zee Sports to present the pre- and post-match analysis of the games.

The PCA has also decided to levy tickets for the matches (Rs. 100 for the general and terrace blocks for all four games, Rs 200 for the VIP block and Rs 2000 for the AC lounge) and, in another first for a domestic tournament, all the corporate boxes have already been sold out, with each box priced at Rs 100,000 (approx US$ 2000). "We have managed to sell 75% worth of tickets," said GS Walia, the treasurer of the PCA, "and we are expecting a large turnout for all the games."

By constructing arguably the best cricket stadium in the country at Mohali and professionalising their entire organisational structure, the Bindra-led PCA set an example for the way state associations should be run. Now they appear to be taking the lead with domestic cricket coverage in India and adding fizz to the first-class game that has been stuck in an anachronistic rut for too long.