The entire nation was united for the inaugural edition of IPLRavi Shastri

By India Today Sports DeskRavi Shastri talked about the inaugural edition of the IPL and said that the entire nation came together to make the first match a big success.

18th April 2023 is the 15th anniversary of the mega league, which has gone from strength to strength since its first edition. The league this year has already seen some thrilling finishes.

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Speaking on the day of the anniversary to Star Sports, Shastri, who was part of the governing counsel then, said he was amazed to see the support the league got from the very first match.

He also hailed the quality of cricket from the first game, where Brendon McCullum hit a magnificent 158 against RCB for KKR.

“I remember that day very well, I was backstage, I was with the governing counsel, I knew what is happening behind the scenes. How are players being signed, how much interest was there. India won the World Cup in 2007, so because of that, the amount of interest that was created was unbelievable. And the one thing that I saw that never happened in other formats of the game, the kind of people that came to support it, it looked like the entire nation was united to come there and watch the match. Advertising industry, cricket fans, Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood, you name it, everyone was there. And the quality of cricket that was seen from the first game itself, there was no substitute for that,” said Shastri.

Shastri also claimed that the quality of cricket was so good that the IPL took off and got the same popularity as football within the second season.

“And if you look at the all the players who played a part in this, the quality of cricket was so good that it took off. But the final stamp on the IPL came when we went to South Africa. To go there and to see that South Africa saw the IPL with the same interest as India, that shocked the world. Because by that time, people around the world had started picking teams. What you see in football now, that had happened in the IPL from the second season itself. The EPL has been going on for years, teams like Arsenal and Manchester United, but here in two years fans in IPL had their teams – Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings or Royal Challengers Bangalore,” said Shastri.