BCCI's Tryst with Article 12: The IPL Saga

The idea of starting a cricket association germinated in India during the end of World War I. Even prior to that, the game of cricket was fairly popular in India and there was a cricket team for India captained by the Maharaja of Patiala. During those times, cricket was a well administered sport in India. It was funded mainly by the nawabs, maharajas, and princes who were at the helm of cricket administration and they set up a noble tradition of managing the game in India. Due to the wide popularity of the game in India, the representatives of the Imperial Cricket Council, the then International Cricket Council (ICC), allowed 2 Indian members from the Cricket Association of Bengal to attend ICC Meetings in England in 1926. The permission was granted on the condition that an administrative body for the control of cricket would be formed later on. Subsequently, in 1927, a provincial board was constituted by a group of 45 people representing cricket associations across India and in the year 1928, this provincial body was dissolved with the establishment of the BCCI. In the next year BCCI became affiliated to the ICC, which gave it an affiliated status as the representative body of Indian cricket at the international level..