Lalit Modi: The Big Match Guy
arch 21, 2009: A phone rings at 5 am in a London house. A just out of bed Andrew Wildblood answers it. The voice on the other end is from 5,000 miles away in Mumbai. It belongs to Indian Premier League (IPL) Commissioner Lalit Modi. “I have your IMG team [event managers] sitting with me in my office. Is it possible to shift the IPL to South Africa with three weeks notice?” Wildblood replies, “If the team thought it was possible then it was possible.” Modi says, “Let’s go for it, meet us in Johannesburg on Monday”
That’s Lalit Modi: Workaholic, go-getter, restless, works best in chaos. Not many people would have taken on the country’s Home Minister at a time when he needed him most; fewer would have taken a $2 billion sporting tournament outside the country in only its second year. Yet Modi did both when the Indian government refused to provide security for the IPL matches as the dates clashed with the general elections — and thrived.
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Image: Vikas Khot
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He is the man behind the unprecedented success of the Indian Premier League and known for relentless energy, can-do attitude, competitiveness and networking ability | |
The first thing you notice about Modi is that he is always moving, even when he is sitting in a chair at press conferences. His eyes scan the room for people he wants to see, when he catches their eye he subtly gestures to them. When he is not sitting, he is networking. Anyone who has watched the IPL on TV has seen him chatting up politician Sharad Pawar, sharing a laugh with blonde spinner Shane Warne or chilling out with the flamboyant Vijay Mallya. And it pays off. When he needs people, he simply picks up a phone and calls them, anytime of the day or night.
That’s how Etienne de Villiers, chairman BBC Worldwide and François Pienaar, South African rugby legend joined the core team at IPL 2009. “Lalit called me up on March 22 and I got on board,” says de Villiers. He has known Modi since 1989 when de Villiers got in touch with him as head of Walt Disney’s international ventures. Villiers is based in London. One day after getting a call from Modi, he was on a plane to South Africa. Two days later he was meeting potential partners in trying to negotiate deals and drum up interests.
We asked Modi what was the most difficult problem that he encountered while organising the tournament, he said “to move Season 2009 of the IPL overseas for the BCCI (Board for Cricket Control in India) was the single biggest decision and challenge. Once we took that the rest was easy!”
Easy might not be the best word to describe it. Both de Villiers and Pienaar moved out of their houses and were living out of hotels for two months with Modi putting the tournament together. Logistics were a nightmare. Internal travel arrangements, rescheduling, ticketing, hotel bookings, team movement, TV production, basically every aspect of event management had to re-thought and re-strategised. “People went nights without sleep driven by professional pride and an overwhelming desire to deliver,” says Wildblood. Villiers says they covered five cities in one day doing radio promotions. What everyone agrees is that the IPL 2009 was one of the most exciting events that they had been part of. Modi is aware of what he has created. He knows he has an incredibly successful product in the IPL.
He is also incredibly competitive. He fast-tracked the first season of the IPL by a whole year. Manoj Badale, owner of Rajasthan Royals recollects a lunch with Modi in October 2007 where Modi told him that he was planning a cricket league in a year’s time. “I had a sort of a 2009 project in my mind, then the ICL (Indian Cricket League) happened and it became a 2007 project.” Modi wants the best and he backs himself to pull it off. He has tremendous self-belief. Bigger is better. Little wonder that the IPL franchisee owners share a similar mindset. Mukesh Ambani — India’s richest individual, Shah Rukh Khan — arguably the top film star in the country, Vijay Mallya who wants to fly higher all the time.
“Lalit has irrepressible energy. He wants to create all the time. He is a restless soul,” says de Villiers. “He debated with me about the choice for the venue. England vs South Africa. I said South Africa, not because of the weather but because of the flexible and can-do attitude here. England is much more formal. Planning, development and availability and accessibility to media takes longer. At the time, it was a huge risky call to move the IPL out of India. It was a pretty high demand to put on 59 matches, you needed a lot of flexibility and that’s what South Africa had,” says de Villiers.
Once the decision was taken there was no looking back. Any idea however preposterous was welcome. Villiers remembers suggesting they hold a carnival with floats in Cape Town as a pre-cursor to the event. But the city needed to be shut down for the duration. Modi loved it and that was it. No doubts on how this could be pulled off. “Francois said ‘I’ll call the mayor’. She was running against current President Zuma. No one except Mandela could have gotten an appointment with her on such short notice. But we did. The next thing we know we are sitting in her conference room with some of the high Cape Town officials and we are discussing matters. ‘Can we do it?’ ‘Yes of course, when do you want the city closed? It has to be at a time when nothing much is happening.’ ‘How about on a Thursday afternoon?’ ‘That’s perfect.’ We had all caught Lalit’s fast decision bug,” says de Villiers.
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