South Africa prepares for biggest test as IPL crosses continents

Just in case anyone doubted the effort that has gone into shifting the Indian Premier League from one continent to another, Lalit Modi, the league's chairman, commissioner and ubiquitous public face, spelled it out. "It's taken them eight years here to get ready for the 2010 soccer World Cup," he said. "We've had 29 days." When play gets under way at Newlands today with the first two games out of 59 spread across six weeks, it will be a triumph for ambition, drive and the non-stop rise of Twenty20 cricket.

If Modi is to be believed, the IPL is not merely a sporting phenomenon of a very modern kind, but a force for good in an insecure country whose new democracy is not even two decades old. After the Lahore terrorist attacks on Sri Lanka's cricketers in March persuaded the Indian government that hosting the world's best players at the same time as staging a drawn-out general election was a recipe for trouble, South Africa happily stepped into the breach. Soon, they will be old hands at this kind of thing.

Two years ago, the country hosted the inaugural World Twenty20. Next month comes the British and Irish Lions rugby team, and later this year cricket's Champions Trophy, another refugee from the perceived dangers of the subcontinent. Next year, it will be football's World Cup. So eager are South Africa to please that when Modi declared on Thursday that the IPL would boost the local economy by between 1.5 and 2 billion rand (up to £150m), few seemed inclined to question the sums.

No matter that the Newlands-based Cape Cobras stand to earn peanuts – one million rand (just under £75,000) – for staging eight matches at short notice at the end of a busy domestic season. To be seen to help is what counts. "If it all works out it will be a reminder of how good we are at staging international events," said Andre Odendaal, the Cobras chief executive.

But business ventures – and the IPL remains very much business before pleasure – have their own ruthlessness, and the reality on the ground in the week leading up to the cricket has not quite tallied with Modi's sunny assessment of "smooth sailing". Much has been made of the sellouts at Cape Town for the weekend's two double-headers, rather less of the Newlands suiteholders persuaded to sacrifice their private boxes to allow a comfier vantage point for the IPL's endless stream of grandees.

Suiteholders at the Wanderers in Johannesburg are said to have been less compliant, and there is an underlying resentment in some quarters at the IPL's apparent sense of entitlement. Modi's decision to introduce compulsory time-outs after 10 overs of each innings, a naked means of creating more airspace for TV commercials, has gone down badly with the host broadcaster Sony, who were already fuming after Modi doubled their TV rights fee following last year's successful launch in India.

It is a financial sleight of hand that this week allowed Modi to proclaim the IPL was "recession-proof". And, with the world's financial markets hanging on for dear life, he has also declared that all eight franchises will have made a profit by the end of the tournament. The plan is to roll out one or two more teams either next year or in 2011, although Modi does at least draw the line at franchises building their own stadiums. Sensibly, perhaps, he achieved a PR coup yesterday by visiting a school in Athlone, an underprivileged part of Cape Town, where – with Kevin Pietersen, Shane Warne, the Bollywood star Preity Zinta et al looking on – he handed over a cheque in front of screaming pupils for 100,000 rand.

In fact, the South African public may well be sufficiently interested to make the tournament work. An impromptu warm-up game last week between the Cape Cobras and the Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne's reigning IPL champions, drew a crowd of over 8,000 and Modi has claimed ticket sales will weather the initial burst of curiosity. Sixteen games – more than anywhere – have been scheduled for Durban, home to 80% of South Africa's 1.5 million Indian population. The hope is that the underwhelming open-top bus parade through Cape Town on a drizzly Thursday is not some kind of omen.

All that is left is the actual cricket, easily forgotten amid the hype. A repeat of last year's opening-night 158 from Kolkata Knight Riders' Brendon McCullum would go down a treat, but near-autumnal South African pitches may not produce the totals of 180-plus that peppered the 2008 competition in India.

In theory, the sides with the most South Africans begin with an advantage. On that score, Bangalore Royal Challengers, dismal last year, look well-placed, with Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn, Roelof van der Merwe and Dillon du Preez all coached by another local, Ray Jennings.

Their captain is Pietersen, who knows the conditions here pretty well too. "It's worked out perfectly for us with Ray as coach as well," he said. "I'm like a kid out here surrounded by all these legends. I just hope the English guys learn a few tricks and take them back to the World Twenty20."

England's players missed out last year. Now they will get to see what all the fuss is about. If the IPL can work in another country, we may just have to start taking the breast-beating Modi at his word.