Revolution for a new ruling class as the money-spinning IPL gets started

Great marketing minds thinking alike? Or could it be indicative of the superiority complex which much of the cricket world now perceives has attached itself to the game in India?

Those sceptical about the revolutionary new Twenty20 league might believe the latter, although in the case of the Challengers, who open the competition in a blaze of pageantry against Calcutta Knight Riders, the truth is more prosaic.

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They are actually named after Royal Challenge, an Indian brand of whisky — the type which tastes like the fuel that powers this city's 100,000 Tut-Tuts — manufactured by their brewery magnate owner Vijay Mallya.

The colourful industrialist, whose other properties include the Force India Formula One team, spent $111million on buying his franchise from the Indian cricket board and he is about to find out whether it is money well spent.

The wider world of cricket is about to discover whether it has the biggest revolution on its hands since Kerry Packer's World Series of Cricket.

This teeming southern metro-polis is a fitting place for Indian cricket to assert itself even more forcefully. As an IT centre and the world's capital of outsourcing, Bangalore — its infrastructure overwhelmed by industrial growth — is emblematic of the country's inexorable rise as a global power.

Now, and for the next 44 days, computer services are having to vie for space on gigantic roadside billboards with moody pictures of the Challengers' big names such as Rahul Dravid.

The first visitors are Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's Knight Riders, among whom is West Indian Chris Gayle, the man who sent Kevin Pietersen into spasms of envy with a text message of dollar signs, gloating about how much money he is missing out on.

Gayle will strut his stuff under floodlights at the Chinnaswammy Stadium, which hosted a rehearsal for the opening ceremony featuring — somewhat incongruously — East European stilt-walkers and Washington Redskins cheerleaders.

It will be at or close to its 55,000 capacity for the first match but the question is whether that will become the norm.

For it is far from automatic that the competition will prove a money-spinner for the celebrity and industrialist owners.

Shah Rukh Khan has already expressed concern about sluggish ticket sales in Calcutta and struck a cautious note, saying: "All of us know we are going to make losses to a certain level and if, God forbid, the losses are huge then I am sure the IPL will look into it."

The franchises cost between $67m and $111m to buy from the Indian Board. The owners will take the major share of the $1.01billion television rights over 10 years and the $50m title sponsorship but to cover overheads they need to generate revenue from tickets, merchandise and individual corporate backers.

This in a country which has no culture of inter-city sporting rivalries or particular regional sporting loyalties.

Most importantly, the footsore international stars will have to show they care about the IPL beyond the width of their wallets. Badge-kissing, anyone?

It is also worth remembering that Twenty20 is pretty much untested on the Indian market, the Board having displayed studied indifference to the format until they won the inaugural World Championship in South Africa six months ago.

Such uncertainties mean there are few guarantees about future wage levels and while the likes of Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff are sure to be in demand, stories that they have already been offered huge multi-year deals are discounted by IPL insiders.

But for now the air of this city is heavy not just with pollution but also optimism and hype.

On Tuesday, for example, there was a mini-riot when the ticket booths Temporarily closed for business, leading to desperate fans storming the counters and invading the office.

To have got the project off the ground in the nine months since the idea was born (at a meeting during the Wimbledon tennis championships) is an extraordinary logistical effort.

For all that the IPL is a symbol of India's broader development, most of the expertise has come from London in the shape of sports marketing giants IMG, who have poured in more than 200 staff over recent weeks.

There have been comparisons made with soccer's Barclays Premier League but the most accurate parallel, logistics-wise, is with another IMG-aided production, the Rugby World Cup — except that this has been done in the four months since the teams were put together rather than four years.

And all on the sub-continent, too.