Come on Aussie! Come on! – Kerry Packer and his war

In recent times, there has been money thrown into cricket. Astronomical sums of it. In fact, James Astill’s book – The Great Indian Tamasha underlines the same thing. However, how much really did Kerry Packer and the rest of the Brady Bunch really have a say in what happened? These days, we see the likes of Lalit Modi and Allan Stanford, both of whom have been driven out and leashed. In my opinion, Stanford has the worse deal courtesy of his 110-year old sentence.

While many are realizing the amount of money cricket is witnessing at the moment with the IPL and the CPL, experts believe that the popularity of the players is reaching its zenith. Never in cricket has anything such as this been seen before. In the early 2000s, Charu Sharma was having a conversation with a few people travelling with him on a Jet Airways flight. A couple of months back, I came across an Instagram post that showed David Warner and Mustafizur Rahman sitting behind a plaque that read – “No Photos”. I suppose that is the unfortunate impact on what has happened in the cricketing world today.

However, many like myself, like to highlight the importance of the monetary benefits of cricket. The Indian Cricket League (ICL) run by Kapil Dev is evidence of the same. Yet, Kerry Packer’s war is something much more robust and well-documented, something that changed cricket as we know it to be today. Terry Jenner, the now deceased leg-spinner of Australia at the time said that “The cricketers of today should just drop to their knees each time Ian Chappell walks by.”

As Ian Chappell has said, the start of World Series Cricket is due to Sir Don Bradman. Although Greg Chappell refused to name names, brother Ian had no qualms about pointing the finger at Bradman. As far as many are concerned, Bradman treated the board’s money as though as it was his own money. However, the major issue, in this case, is the simple fact that many forget the contribution made by Kerry Packer.

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The Ratings go through the Roof!

In late 1978, Kerry and the rest of Channel 9 of Australia watched as the television ratings went through the roof. For those of you reading, this is what India is going through at the moment. As a tycoon, Packer’s Channel nine network had some of the best programmes on the show. Whether it was watching ‘Strop’ on ‘The Paul Hogan Show’ or watching Austin Robertson tearing apart the Australian Rules Football show, Packer had it all. Well, at least all of it.

The first Kerry Packer war was the signing of the players in secret, something that was emulated a few decades later by Kapil Dev. In secret, Packer signed some of the world’s best players. The USP? Well, that was the easy part as far as Packer was concerned. The boards and the other establishments had not a lot of money. Kerry packed did. The hard part, however, was the non-disclosure – something he eventually succeeded in.

The well-documented jingle that was released a few months later has become a massive part of Australian folklore.

We’ve been training all the week.

And there is not a team that is better

And that’s the way we want to be.

When you’re up against the best you know

This is a super Test you know,

And you have got to be the best the world has seen

C’mon Aussie C’mon

(Channel Nine’s jingle for the World Series Cricket Advertisement)

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Fix it Andrew!!

Remember those light towers at the Sydney Cricket ground? Remember who built them? Well, the government of New South Wales built them, but they are known as Kerry’s towers. Of course, erecting the towers would have been an expenditure Kerry Packer was perhaps hoping to avoid. And avoid he did.

However, the match between Australia and the West Indies will forever be remembered as the match that changed cricket as we know it. Those present will remember Wayne Daniel smashing Mick Malone into the crowd and the thousands of supporters who made their way into the ground as the West Indies secured a win. However, many forget the story told by Packer’s aide Tony Greig when he narrated Kerry Packer’s war against the Municipality of the New South Wales.

Greig went on to illustrate the story wherein Packer slowed down the big clock in the SCG over a period of five minutes to complete the match. Richie Benaud however, enumerated the story of the aftermath when they all raised a glass of white wine to one another.

Of course, there were many worse and brutal wars that Kerry Packer did indeed fight. However, my opinion at the end of all of this is a simple fact wherein the wars, cricket is the massive global sport that it is today. Even Richie Benaud once said: “There is money everywhere in the game today. Never seen so much of it.”

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