Yahoo Sport 
From World Series Cricket to the IPL - cricket has a long history of controversial tournaments
“C’mon Aussie, C'mon,” was the symbol of a revolution: the iconic theme tune of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. It was ingenious - cheeky and playing to fans’ patriotism while telling them that the best Australian cricketers could now be found here, in World Series Cricket.
The tournament had come about in 1977, when Packer hijacked many of the world’s best cricketers. He was aghast at his attempts to buy the broadcasting rights to Australia’s home internationals being rejected. And he recognised how cricketers’ low pay made them vulnerable to such a breakaway.
Packer’s solution was to recruit dozens of the world’s best cricketers - the bulk of the Australian and West Indies teams, as well as England captain Tony Greig - to play in WSC, his new competition. As Packer explained: “Had I got those TV rights I was prepared to withdraw from the scene and leave the running of cricket to the board. I will take no steps now to help anyone. It's every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.”
Packer’s players were not barred from playing in international matches - but some national boards decided to ban the players from taking part themselves, in a forlorn attempt to dissuade them from playing in WSC. With WSC unable to use the term ‘Test matches’, the matches were branded ’Supertests’ instead.
WSC got off to an inauspicious start: just 2,000 attended the opening day of the first Supertest, between Australia and West Indies. At the same time, thousands more attended an Australian Test being played at the same time, even though the side were depleted.
Only in its second season did WSC soar. While WSC had a cocktail of brilliant fast bowlers, aggressive marketing and innovations - day-night matches, and coloured clothed for one-day games, which dominated the schedule - an understrength Australia were pummelled 5-1 in the Ashes. Now, crowds - and TV audiences - preferred WSC to the official Test matches.
Yet the irony remained that, because of the salaries paid to players and operating costs, WSC leaked money even as the sport itself thrived. The Australian Cricket Board lost money too, suggesting the two parallel structures were hurting each other.
In March 1979, Packer and the Australian Cricket Board hit upon a truce - although, really it was a Packer victory. His TV network, Channel Nine, gained the rights to broadcast Australian cricket while Packer was given a ten-year deal to promote and market the game. The sport that would evolve in the years after - with more limited-overs games, more day-night matches, helmets and players paid far more - was shaped by the two years of WSC.
If WSC was the first insurgent competition to transform modern cricket, the second was the Indian Premier League. This new Twenty20 competition - based around cities rather than international teams - was formed in 2007 and hastily launched in April 2008. In itself, the IPL was a response to the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League, a T20 league on the same lines that was not sanctioned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India which launched in 2007. Even before a single ball had been bowled in the IPL, it had already earned the BCCI almost £1 billion.
The IPL’s significance in cricket’s ecosystem grows greater with every year: the tournament alone generates in the region of one-third of all the sport’s revenue. Its success has spawned copycat leagues - including the Hundred - and moved cricket into a new age, with the previous dominance of international fixtures eroded by the new popularity of domestic games.
