Lalit Modi: “You will see players making $1-$2m a game. It will happen sooner rather than later”

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Former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi believes that players will earn a jaw-dropping $1 to $2 million dollars per game in the tournament in the future.

He added that the IPL will become the most dominant and lucrative domestic Twenty20 competition in the world, while international cricket will slowly become irrelevant.

“The IPL is here to stay,” Modi told The Daily Telegraph. “It will be the dominant sporting league in the world. You will see players making $1-$2m a game. It will happen sooner rather than later.

“In a free market the person with the deepest pockets will win. The players will gravitate towards who pays the biggest salary.”

In addition to his prediction on the future of international cricket, Modi also feels that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will become a useless governing body.

“Today international cricket does not matter,” he said. “It is of zero value to the Indian fan.

“Tomorrow you will see bilateral cricket disappear. Big series will happen once every three or four years like the World Cup.

“The ICC will become an irrelevant body. It will be full of fat lugs who have no power. They can scream and shout now and in the future they will threaten to throw India out if they try to expand the IPL but India has the power to stand on its own feet…They have a domestic league that it is going to be 20-times the size of international cricket.”

Modi added that if Test cricket is to survive in the future, the ICC have to introduce the World Test championship they have spoken about.

“I think there is a window for Test cricket and a World Test championship will survive if all nations get together and make it a proper tournament,” he said. “But it has to be a championship. If the ICC does not do it I see no reason why the IPL would not do it instead as a knockout IPL Test championship.”