ICC chairman Jay Shah has garnered praise from fugitive businessman and IPL founder Lalit Modi for the massive viewership the T20 World Cup is enjoying in India.
Jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka, the tournament began on February 7 and will conclude on March 8. Although the final is yet to be played, the event has already surpassed the viewership figures recorded during the 2024 edition.
“The journey of the @ICC #T20WorldCup 2026 began with the ambition to make it the most #global & #accessible Cricket event ever. I am humbled that viewership for the event in India has crossed 500 million, the highest ever for any T20 World Cup in history,” Jay Shah, who is the son of Union home minister Amit Shah, posted on X (formerly Twitter).
“ It was also heartening to see concurrent viewers @JioHotstar hit a peak of 60.5 million. With Knock-out matches for the tournament starting tonight, we hope that the immeasurable love our events receive from Indian fans helps break more records," he said.
Lali Modi retweeted Jay Shah’s post, credited India’s clout for the tournament’s scale and accused countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan of trying to “hold the game to ransom”.
“That’s the power that India brings to the cricket world,” Modi wrote. “An amazing job being done by you and your team despite countries like #bangladesh and #pakistan trying to hold the game to ransom. I am sure under your leadership as shown at this World Cup cricket will only grow globally. The international level games will continue to come under pressure from domestic leagues like @ipl @CPL #bigbash , #southafrican league, luckily one does not need to worry about @thehundred @MLCricket and others that will die slowly anyway - but the #icc now is embarking on its most ambitious journey ahead with taking the much loved sport #cricket onto a global stage - the @Olympics in Los Angeles will expose the game to a whole new audience and new generations of children not yet exposed to our game.”
Modi also declared that the 50-over format of cricket may no longer be relevant.
“One thing the @icc should examine whether there is any relevance left to the one day format,” he wrote, arguing that scrapping it would ease the burden on players juggling national duty, ICC events and domestic leagues.
Calling the IPL “the only future game in town”, he cited “The money they can make. No2. The viewership. No3. It’s competitiveness. The same has evolved in all major sports. Careful consideration to the #ftp must address these issues.”
His remarks come months after he apologised for calling himself and businessman Vijay Mallya the “two biggest fugitives” of India in a social media video, saying the comment had been “misconstrued”.
The T20 World Cup viewership numbers follow the 2025 Champions Trophy, which logged 250 billion minutes of watch-time and a peak television audience of 122 million.