Even the most ardent Australian cricket fan would have struggled to grasp the revolutionary Twenty20 Indian Premier League in its opening two seasons.

Set on foreign shores, in India in year one and transferred to South Africa in year two because of security fears, with foreign team names and broadcast here late at night and only on digital television, it was certainly hard to embrace.

But that has now changed, thanks to the deal astute IPL boss Lalit Modi has struck with YouTube to have matches streamed live on your PC.

That meant backpagelead.com.au was able to sit back and enjoy several of the opening matches this weekend live even before they were shown on Channel Ten's OneHD, which was supposed to be broadcasting this tournament live.

When OneHD crossed late on Saturday night to the clash between Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals and Sachin Tendulkar's Mumbai Indians, anyone watching on YouTube would have already known what Mumbai had scored.

One benefit, however, of OneHD's delay was that it gave viewers the chance to witness twice Yusuf Pathan's stunning IPL record century off just 37 balls, a knock Warne later labelled the finest he had ever seen in his career. (Pathan is pictured above, celebrating his ton.) That comment may have been a little dramatic but, as well know, that's Warne.

Getting back to the YouTube deal, it's just another way Modi has transformed a sport that for too long had been stuck in a time warp.

Twenty-five years ago cricket could easily have had a similar competition in limited-overs cricket. Imagine the likes of Ian Botham, Viv Richards, Richard Hadlee, Allan Border, Kapil Dev, David Gower and Imran Khan playing as teammates.

There were hints of that in the Sheffield Shield and English county cricket but nothing to the extent of the IPL.

While one-day internationals were at their peak in the late 1980s as far as being a big-ticket item, a club-based competition featuring the game's elite would have been equally as popular.

There are those who remain sceptical about the IPL and just how strong its financial base really is. Modi, too, hasn't endeared himself to everyone.

Some think he has too much power and too much to say. The IPL's stringent media regulations have ostracised non-rights broadcast holders, while international news agencies have again boycotted the event.

The sport's premier website, cricinfo, has also been banned because Modi wants coverage restricted to the IPL's official site (which needs work).

Modi needs to improve these relationships there but there's little doubt the IPL is here to stay - as long as Twenty20 remains popular. As backpagelead.com.au discussed in "Revealed: Cricket's Big Bash revamp", that's likely to be the case for some time.

Modi clearly has been a trailblazer, forcing the likes of Cricket Australia to play catch up. CA took charge of the Champions League (the best Twenty20 domestic teams playing off against each other) to at least snag a piece of the Indian pie and has now launched plans to expand its own Twenty20 Big Bash.

Cricket has a grand tradition and, for the most part, that must be celebrated and maintained.

But Modi has helped garner a fresh set of fans and, for that, cricket must also be thankful.