Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag recently revealed how he learnt about BCCI’s plan to introduce the Indian Premier League, and what kind of impression he had of the cash-rich league. Played as an icon player for Delhi Daredevils, Sehwag is one of the most explosive batters to ever grace the league.
It was the year 2007 when India won the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup, India was touring Australia, and Sehwag was part of the squad. In a recent interaction arranged by Star Sports ahead of the celebration of 15 years of the IPL, Sehwag revealed that he was first approached by Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar who told him to give all his rights to the league.
“A lot of time has passed since the inception of the IPL. My children have come adults and they have started playing cricket too. But I will never forget the first time we were briefed about when we were in Australia. Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri approached us and said that there is going to be an Indian Premier League and they asked us for all our rights,” Sehwag said.
The Indian cricketer also revealed that he was a bit sceptical about giving all his rights to a new league. “We were wondering whether the league would be successful or not – what if after giving away our rights we do not gain anything from it,” Virendra Sehwag added.
However, he further claimed that Shastri and Gavaskar assured them that the coming years will be very big for cricket in India and whatever rights we grant to this league, we will be able to earn much more than that.
“Money was secondary to us at that time, but we didn’t know that the league would give rise to so many youngsters who would one day replace us and become stars,” he concluded.
