The IPL has gone through an upward rise in its first 15 years like few sports leagues in the history have gone through. The first IPL match took place on April 18th, 2008 between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders when Brendon McCullum lit up the tournament with his blitzkrieg of 158 runs.
Recently, the match number 42 of IPL 2023 was the 1000th match in the Indian Premier League history with Mumbai Indians recording a sensational chase of 213 runs against Rajasthan Royals – it was perhaps fitting that the most successful team of the first 15 seasons made a record chase in the Indian Premier League’s 1000th encounter.
Interestingly, there were 3 people who were part of the 1st IPL match and also the 1000th IPL match:
Mark Boucher
Former South Africa wicketkeeper Mark Boucher, aged 46 now, is currently the head coach of the Mumbai Indians team and was stationed in the MI dugout in the 1000th match when MI hosted RR at the Wankhede.
Boucher was part of the playing XI of the first-ever Premier League match back in 2008 for RCB against KKR. He had scored 7 runs in that first IPL game, vs KKR.
Ravi Shastri
There was the ever-familiar face and the boisterous voice at the toss of the 1000th game, as it was at the opening ceremony in the first-ever IPL match: Ravi Shastri. During these 15 years, the 60-year-old Shastri was also part of the Indian team as head coach, but is now back at the Indian League duties from last year.
Zaheer Khan
Zaheer Khan was the RCB bowler who bowled the second over of the first-ever IPL match, against KKR. He had returned with figures of 1/38, taking the wicket of Sourav Ganguly, in his 4 overs then.
Now, retired from all forms of the game, Zaheer Khan has been with the Mumbai Indians as their Director Of Cricket for the past few years.
