I had a dream the other night. Or to be more exact, a nightmare.

I dreamt I was standing in a bookshop, browsing in a book entitled Fifty Years of the IPL, 2008-2058. As I read I started to break out in a sweat, and I was finally awakened by the sound of my own scream.

Still sweating, I wrote down what I could remember from the text. There was obviously a lot more, but this is what I could recall:

‘In those days the IPL had several competitors, the most important of which was the International Cricket Council. It ran the game worldwide, while the IPL was merely a subsidiary of one of its member organisations, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

‘The real turning point in cricket history was the ICC’s restructuring of the game in 2010-11, which was intended to strengthen its position but in fact had the opposite effect.

‘Acting on the orders of its media partners and at the instigation of its most powerful members, the ICC decided to reduce the number of countries allowed to participate in its “World Cup” from 14 to 10 (it had previously cut it down from its peak size of 16), and to ensure that it was only its “Full” members who were permitted to take part.

‘This policy reversed the approach which had been followed until then, which involved an attempt to expand the sport globally. The ICC’s 95 countries which were not “Full” members were now told to concentrate on Twenty20 cricket, with six of them being permitted to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup. But the 50-over competition and “Test” cricket – an archaic form of the game in which matches could last for as long as five days – were to be closed to them.

‘Shortly afterwards, the Full members voted to scrap the development programmes which had been designed to expand the sport and raise standards in the emerging countries. There was now little money spent on coaching outside the Big Ten, and what coaching there was concentrated entirely on developing the big hitting skills needed for Twenty20.

‘Even in the Full members, the growing emphasis on Twenty20 and the continuing success of the IPL with its teams drawn from all over the world meant that the old-fashioned, longer forms of the game began to die out. The IPL, with typical business acumen, moved to accelerate this process in 2018 by refusing to allow its players to take part in any matches outside its own competition.

‘Inevitably, the ICC’s “Test championship” and “ODI League” became no more than feeder leagues for the IPL. Crowds declined dramatically, and much of the ICC’s income had to be spent on paying spectators to attend so that the stands did not appear too empty for the television cameras.

‘The ICC media partners eventually became impatient with the dwindling crowds at “Test” matches, and in 2024 demanded that they be abolished.

‘This inevitably led to demonstrations by small numbers of traditionalist die-hards, but these were ignored by the media and quickly suppressed. There was one unfortunate incident in 2025 when the old pavilion at Lord’s was burnt to the ground, but the police soon restored order with only minimal loss of life.

‘ODIs were the next to go, despite repeated attempts by the ICC to improve the format and retain public interest. The final match, by this time consisting of ten five-over innings per side, was the deciding game in a 17-match series between India and Pakistan, played at the Everglades Stadium in Florida on 1 April 2029. Pakistan scored 70 for 27, made up of 11 sixes – the longest of them travelling 136.74328 metres, thanks to the redesigned ball intended to produce bigger and bigger sixes – and four leg-byes off a batsman’s helmet, and India won by 45 wickets.

‘By this time, domestic cricket in the ICC’s ten “Real” members (as the elite group had renamed themselves) was in serious decline. In England, for example, ten of the 18 counties had gone bankrupt between 2013 and 2021, and the eight survivors were all wholly-owned subsidiaries of IPL franchises.

‘The counties agreed to stop paying their players altogether in 2025, but the decline continued, and in 2028 the ECB, meeting in Kolkata, agreed to cease operations altogether.

‘Even the ICC World Twenty20 Cup was not immune to these forces. With the “Real” members deprived of their leading players and the minor countries taking advantage of lax qualification rules, the results became more and more random, the low point coming when Moldova, fielding eight Australians and three South Africans, beat Pakistan in the 2031 final. There were suggestions that Pakistan’s total of 17 in 18.5 overs might have been influenced by match-fixing, but the ICC insisted that no proof could be found.

‘After that, the outcome was inevitable. On 27 March 2032, the ICC formally closed down. The following day, the commissioners of the IPL announced that their organisation would be renamed the “International Cricket League”, and started relocating some of their franchises. One of their first, typically magnanimous actions was to build a new pavilion at Lord’s, renamed the Haroon Lorgat Stadium in honour of the man who had headed the ICC during the final years of its demise.

‘The first truly global competition, in 2033-34, ended in victory for the Guangzhou Warriors (six Indians, two Australians, two South Africans and a New Zealander), who beat the Los Angeles Demons (seven Indians, three South Africans and a Barbadian) in a best-of-43-match final played on six of the seven continents. The IPL’s triumph was complete.’

Strange things, dreams …