How Yuvraj Singh's six sixes off Stuart Broad cost Lalit Modi a Porsche

SIMON HUGHES: Broad joins me in The Analyst's Virtual Cricket Club tonight, raising money for the Professional Cricketers' Trust. And it reminded me about the conversation I had with Modi about that famous over in his London flat last year...

This is not generally known. What am I on about? Stuart Broad has never played in the IPL!

I will take you back to September 2007. The World T20 match between England and India in Durban. There was a very important man in attendance.

Lalit Modi, then commercial head of BCCI but also the man who created the IPL and had begun to recruit players. But he wasn't sure it would take off.

I interviewed him last year at his apartment in London. This is how he recounted the match.

“The tournament hadn’t really caught alight. I went into the Indian dressing room in Durban. I said ‘anybody who hits six sixes in an over, or takes six wickets in an over, will get a Porsche!’

“I’m standing in Kingsmead on the sidelines and Yuvraj Singh hits his first six - off Stuart Broad. Then a second six. Then a third. I woke up. I said to myself 'shit this could be it!’ Yuvraj is looking at me. He hits his fourth six. Fifth six. He hit the sixth six. And he came running towards me and he said ‘My Porsche! My Porsche!!’

^{Yuvraj Singh}

“I said ‘it’s done.’ And he went running back and I said, ‘Wait! Give me your bat!’ And he came back and he gave me his bat and changed it for another. And I said ‘That’s mine now.’ Everybody was so excited.”

In his apartment Modi pauses to summon one of his Sloane Street housekeepers.

“Bring me the bat!”

She’s Thai. She looks perplexed. “Bat?”

“The cricket bat! In a frame. It says six, six, six, six, six, six! Bring that down! It’s upstairs somewhere.”

The hunt for the bat fails. It turns out it is in his office in Mumbai. He continues. He’s on a roll now.

“That was the start of the IPL! I thought I don’t need to market this anymore. It is going to market itself. Now we have to win this T20 World Cup thing. And we did. We created history.”

So that famous over - delivered by Broad deposited by Yuvraj - lit the blue touchpaper for the IPL and T20.

I'm going to ask Broad about this on Thursday night. Be there!

Join The Analyst's Virtual Cricket Club and help raise money for the Professional Cricketers' Trust. Click here to be part of the exclusive private session with Stuart Broad

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