Career-best knocks by Tendulkar & Dravid
& How BCCI (early 1990s) had Paid Doordarshan for LIVE Telecast of their Matches
8th November 1999
India vs New Zealand ODI @ Hyderabad
#memoriesfromdiaries
Tendulkar (186) & Dravid (153) on a Record Partnership!
This particular day’s cricket ODI (telecast on Doordarshan) between India and New Zealand at Hyderabad, was a real treat for all of us – huge fans of Tendulkar.
And the little master didn’t disappoint us!
He went on a hitting spree with Dravid [aptly nicknamed The Wall of India, because of his ability to hang on to the pitch for long!] giving him that much-needed company at the turf, and India amassing 376 runs for the loss of just two wickets.
In response, the Kiwis were bundled out for a paltry 202 runs, in 33.1 overs.
On an aside –
For yet another interesting development on the conflict between Doordarshan and BCCI –
Quite interestingly, in the early 1990s, Doordarshan was airing BCCI’s cricket matches free of cost.
In fact, sometimes it was the BCCI which paid DD for coverage costs! 😊
Can you imagine Doordarshan demanding an exorbitant sum of five lakh rupees, [way back in the year 1992], from the BCCI, as a necessary pre-condition for telecasting cricket matches played on Indian soil?
Fast forward to twenty years from then –
In the year 2012, STAR India, won the BCCI Media rights by paying a record sum of Rs. 3851 crore, for a six-year period from 2012 to 2018.
Incidentally, it took an Ali Bacher (in the early 1990s) to herald the sea-change that’s swept Indian cricket since then!
BCCI soon ‘awoke’ from its slumber, and became ‘enlightened’ to the huge money involved in awarding telecasting rights.
For the very next India vs England home series, in 1993 BCCI sagaciously awarded its telecasting rights to Trans World International (for a six-year period, from 1993 to 1999), and made a record $600,000 from this deal with TWI!
Doordarshan hadn’t in the least expected this alarming development!
Ironically, they had to pay a record sum of one million dollars to TWI to telecast the matches back home in India. [and DD even knocked at the court doors on this issue at a later point in time].
This TV deal with TWI (1993-1999) was indeed a trendsetter of sorts, since this in turn led to cricket acquiring a unique brand value, with a host of sponsors and advertisers, vying with each other to promote their brands when the sun was shining happily on Indian cricket!
And that’s how Indian cricket acquired its value and its worth! Its ‘brand value’ and its ‘brand Tendulkar’ amongst a host of others!
But that’s meet for another post!
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