Kerry Packer's Cricket

Kerry Packer died yesterday. Apart from being a media mogul in Australia, Packer also owns the famous Crown casino in Melbourne and the Ellerston polo club, supposed to be one of the best Polo clubs in the world.

I found an interesting story about the origins of the Packer business empire.

His grandfather is said to have found a 10 shilling note in a Tasmanian street at the turn of the century and decided to put it all on a horse. It won and he bought himself the boat fare to the mainland where he got a job as a journalist and started to build the family's media empire

However, Packer's will always be remembered foremost as the man responsible for redefining modern cricket.

In 1977, frustrated at the Australian Cricket Board's refusal to accept a AUS$1.5 million bid for the television rights to screen Australian Test matches and Sheffield Shield Cricket, he signed more than 50 cricketers to play in his own tournament. For a while, the game was split between the establishment - the International Cricket Conference- and Packer's World Series Cricket.

The root of this controversy was the fact that players were unhappy with their salaries and were treated as amateurs. The World Series Cricket corrected that and introduced day and night matches, colored uniforms for players and white cricket ball. But as I learn from Michael Jenning's blog all of it was an accident

The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is owned by the state government of New South Wales. This government had no wish to upset the most powerful media mogul in the country, and so the government gave permission for WSC matches to be played at the SCG. However, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) actually belongs to the Melbourne Cricket Club, which would not give Packer permission to play his games there. Therefore, another venue had to be found, and the games were played at VFL park, a ground which was built for Australian Rules Football. Football matches were often played at night. As the lights were already there, WSC decided to experiment with night cricket, and scheduled one day games starting in the middle of the afternoon, and concluding just after 10pm. (This was also excellent for prime time television). The traditional red ball did not show up well against artificial light, and a white ball was substituted. This white ball did not show up well against the white clothing traditionally worn by cricketers, and therefore coloured uniforms were substituted.

Of course in the end, the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) surrendered to Packer and the modern cricket was born. It is somewhat ironic that the Indian cricket team last week became the world's most expensive sporting team beating Juventus football club. I bet Kerry Packer himself had no idea how much influence could his clash with the ACB will have on Indian cricket.