A league nobody was sure about
The IPL was put together at speed. The BCCI announced it in September 2007, days after Dhoni's young side won the World Twenty20 in Johannesburg, and by January the eight franchises had been sold and the players auctioned. What nobody could tell you in April 2008 was whether India would turn up for club cricket. This is a country that had spent sixty years caring about eleven men in blue. Asking Chennai to care about beating Bangalore was a genuine gamble.
The answer took one evening.
18 April, Chinnaswamy
Brendon McCullum opened for Kolkata Knight Riders against Royal Challengers Bangalore and made 158 not out off 73 balls. Kolkata finished on 222 for 3. Bangalore, with Dravid and Kallis in the order, were bowled out for 82 in 15.1 overs. A 140-run defeat in the first match of a new league is not a good advertisement for the losing side, but it was an extraordinary one for the format. The next night Michael Hussey made 116 not out off 54 at Mohali and Chennai Super Kings posted 240. Whatever doubts existed on 17 April were gone by the weekend.
Rajasthan, written off, top of the table
Rajasthan Royals were nobody's pick. They won eleven of fourteen league games and topped the table. Shane Warne captained them, took 19 wickets, and ran a young Indian dressing room with an authority foreign players were rarely given here. Sohail Tanvir, whose action looked like a mistake in progress, took 22 wickets for the Purple Cap, including 6 for 14. Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja finished the season as household names. The Orange Cap went to Shaun Marsh of Kings XI Punjab with 616 runs.
At the other end sat Deccan Chargers. Gilchrist, Symonds, Laxman, Afridi — two wins in fourteen and last place. Remember that for next season.
The season had its ugly evening too. On 25 April at Mohali, Harbhajan Singh slapped Sreesanth after Mumbai's third straight defeat, and Sreesanth was filmed weeping on the outfield. The BCCI banned Harbhajan for the remaining eleven matches.
The final ball at DY Patil
The final on 1 June went the distance. Chennai made 163 for 5. Rajasthan needed the last delivery of the match and got there, 164 for 7, three wickets in hand. Yusuf Pathan took the match award for 56 off 39 and three wickets. A scriptwriter handing in that ending for a first season would have been told to tone it down.
What it changed
Fifty-nine matches over six weeks, and the Indian cricket calendar was rearranged permanently. April and May belonged to the league from that point on. The money changed shape too: a domestic batsman from Baroda or Saurashtra could now earn in one season what a decade of Ranji Trophy would not pay. Every other board began sketching its own version. Most of them are still sketching. The 2008 season also remains the only one in which Pakistani players featured; after the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai they stopped being picked.