World Series Cricket (WSC) is a result of revolutionary break away from the professional cricket. It was athe result of a mutiny raised by Kerry Packer between 1977 and 1979 for his Australian television network, Nine Network. The matches ran in opposition to established international cricket, changing the entire nature of cricket for ever. The main reasons thatled to the break away was insufficient amounts given to the players by the Australian cricket board and Packer’s desire to secure the exclusive broadcasting rights to Australian cricket, which was safe in the hands of the Australian Broad Casting Corporation(ABC).

Packer after getting annoyed by the blatant refusal of Australian Cricket Board(ABC) to accept Channel Nine’s bid for exclusive television rights to Australia’s Test matches in 1976, set up his own series. This was done after making the players convinced and by secretly signing agreements with leading Australian, English, Pakistani, South African and West Indian players. The players who signed the pact included big names like Tony Greig, Clive Llyod, Greg Chappel and Ian Chappel.

The crisis in the Australian television industry in the mid of 1970’s including the imposing of quota system and other regional issues were were diplomatically used by Packer. He thought of telecasting sports in Channel Nine, which could bring in big money without much sweating. But ACB filed a suite agaist Parker, which led to the denial of his right to use the terms Test, Australia or offical rules of cricket.

But the WSC was a big success with the first match between attracting a large fanfare and a lot of new rules that were never dared to experiment in cricket. Packer introduced helmets for batsmen, and brought ou a new concept of day-night matches which became very popular in the next few years.

World Series Cricket helped in building up of new players with aggressive mindset, where by they became full-time professionals. Most of the cricket boards revised the payment fixture, which helped the palyers in earning decent money from the game. In a way Kerry Packer and his terrific concept of world Series Cricket paved way for a new concept of cricket.

Tags : Cricket, helmet, Australia, Ian Chappel, batsman, Clive Llyod, Greg Chappel, World Series Cricket, Kerry Packer, ABC, Channel Nine, ACB, suit, Tony Greig

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