Local cricket bosses are excited about hosting Indian Premier League matches and do not foresee problems in extending the local season into late May.

One of the key reasons England lost out in the relocation of the event was the weather, with rain in April and May likely to have bedevilled the programme at English grounds.

“Getting the IPL here is great news for us, and it is a big endorsement for our administrators,” said Western Province Cricket Association chief executive Andre Odendaal.
Newlands is one of six venues likely to be used during the 59-game tournament, with the opening ceremony and first game (on April 18) set for the famous city ground.

“It is great to be able to give our loyal fans some more cricket, especially with the field in superb condition,” added Odendaal. “We hosted a Test against New Zealand from May 1-5 in 2007, which produced lots of runs. So we are not foreseeing any problems in having seven good 20-overs pitches.”

IPL commissioner Lalit Modi said on Tuesday that the eight city-based franchises would not be based in specific cities in South Africa, but would play around the country.

While the IPL and Cricket South Africa will be burning the midnight oil to produce a schedule for the 59 matches of the tournament in the next couple of days, early reports have suggested the cities which will host matches are Cape Town, Johannesburg, Centurion, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London.

If only six South African grounds are used, they would all host either nine or 10 first-round matches, with semifinals and a final to follow. As South Africa’s biggest ground, the Wanderers should get the final.Hosting the IPL will mean a shortened off-season period for locals. The tournament, starting on April 18, will last five weeks, and South Africa will also be hosting the ICC Champions Trophy in September.

Neither the IPL nor the ICC will accept matches in premier competitions being hosted at small venues in the country. They will want the Wanderers, Newlands, Kingsmead, St George’s Park and SuperSport Park in Centurion to stage matches in two such important events.

Over the last few seasons, though, there have been numerous complaints from the Proteas and domestic players about the standard of South African pitches. Allowing the various groundsmen time to get the venues into shape is crucial, but that won’t happen given the much shortened off-season.

Although CSA chief executive Gerald Majola did not seem perturbed about over-use of grounds, some senior CSA officials are believed to be extremely concerned about the number of matches South Africa will be hosting in the coming weeks and months.

“Maybe all that money they are making can be put to use to make sure the grounds are properly ready for next season,” said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

CSA are expected to make in the region of R90-million for hosting the IPL. That money will be paid as a flat rate and the IPL will basically run the event in the stadiums.

Modi did say on Tuesday that his organisation was negotiating with South African companies to allow them to come on board for this season’s competition as sponsors, but, for the rest, the money made inside the stadiums through the sale of merchandise and suites would go to the IPL.

The second edition of the IPL tournament, which features day/night matches between eight franchise teams backed by wealthy businessmen and Bollywood stars, had to leave its homeland after the Indian Government said a clash of dates with the upcoming general election meant they could not provide the required security.
Source – iol.co.za

Australian cricket great Shane Warne thinks it’s a shame his Rajasthan Royals won’t get a chance to defend their Indian Premier League title on home soil.

A year after retiring from international cricket, Warne was captain and coach of the Jaipur-based Royals franchise that won the inaugural IPL, a Twenty20 tournament that attracts the world’s leading players on lucrative contracts and is run by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The 2009 IPL season was shifted to South Africa and delayed by a week because the tournament dates – originally April 10 to May 24 – clashed with general elections in India, causing concerns that security forces would be too stretched to adequately cover matches and polling booths.

“To win it on the last ball last year as the underdogs, having been thrashed in our first game, was pretty special in front of 80 000 people,” Warne told reporters on Thursday. “It won’t be the same as it being in India, but hopefully the South African public will get behind it and turn up to the ground and make it a great spectacle.”The Royals captain said much of the planning for the season had to be quickly overhauled, with the eight-team league now playing in unfamiliar territory.

“We’ve done three months of planning about itineraries and practice matches and all sorts of things. We were all set to go,” Warne said.

“We started planning for England over the weekend and now we’re planning for South Africa as of yesterday.”

Warne said the Rajasthan Royals would play some practice matches in Cape Town before the league to get used to the conditions.

And while he doubted that number of fans that the first IPL season attracted in India would be repeated, Warne said he was anticipating good support in South Africa.
“South Africa loves sport, they’re very passionate about their sport. Hopefully they get some good crowds… (But) it’ll be nothing like if it was in India, and it’s a shame it can’t be in India.”

The 39-year-old Warne, who was the leading bowler in Test cricket when he retired in 2007, said security was paramount and the players and staff would just have to deal with the tournament’s decision to move, confirmed by IPL commissioner Lalit Modi earlier this week.

“Its just difficult,” he said. “It’s out of our hands. It’s up to Lalit Modi and all of his team to decide what to do.

“It is a shame we’re not in India, it would have been nice to be there.”
Source – iol.co.za

Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, who co-owns Indian Premier League (IPL) team Rajasthan Royals, hopes that the new venue for the matches will be a success for the T20 series.

“Kudos to the South African government and South Africa cricket body who have welcomed us with open arms and I am really hopeful after attending the Australia vs South Africa Pro T20 Match on Friday, seeing the huge cricket fan base there, I am sure that the IPL will be hugely successful,” Shilpa posted on her blog on board a flight to Cape Town.

The second edition of IPL is taking place in South Africa. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) decided to shift the Twenty20 tournament outside the country after state governments failed to assure security for the event that clashed with general elections.

Last year’s winning team, Rajasthan Royals will kick off the series with a match against Bangalore Royal Challengers at Newlands, Cape Town April 18 and the 33-year-old actress also admitted to undergoing pressure to maintain the winning streak.

“The pressure is really on, especially for us but I feel Rajasthan Royals have an edge since three of our players belong to the South African team, namely South Africa captain Graeme Smith, Morne Morkel and Tyron Henderson,” she wrote.

Source – movies.ndtv.com

The list of commentators for season two of IPL is as follows: Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, L Sivaramakrishnan, Arun Lal, Ramiz Raja, Pommie Mbangwa, Kepler Wessels, Robin Jackman, Danny Morrison, Ranjit Fernando, Alastair Campbell, Simon Doull, Abbas Ali Baig, Greg Blewett, Jeremey Coney .

Asked his expectations for Indian fans to travel to South Africa, Percy Dubash who handles IPL publicity said: “The Rainbow Nation is a very popular tourism destination and we are certain that a large number of Indians and non-resident Indians would also visit the country for IPL. The league is immensely popular with a huge global fan-base. The fact that the league also coincides with summer holidays in India, given the end of the academic year, also bodes well for an influx of Indian tourists.”

Talking about the challenge of hosting IPL out of its natural home, Dubash said that filling the stadia with South African and Indian fans will be one of the biggest challenges. “However, the success of the Indian Premier League has been attributable to an amalgam of multiple factors but most importantly it was due to the fact that the on-field action was truly world class,” he remarked. “That is the main catalyst behind the unprecedented success of the Indian Premier League. In most developed economies of the world, live sports play a very integral part of the family experience, be it an NBA game or an English Premier League game on weekdays or over weekends.

“In a similar vein, I think the void of live entertainment was more than adequately filled by the Indian Premier League as it combined some of the best cricket talent in the world, together with the next generation of Indian talent all packaged into a highly entertaining three-hour roller-coaster of fun, excitement, and adrenalin-packed cricket action. That is exactly the reason the Indian Premier League managed to capture the imagination of an entire nation, and more importantly the world.”

Season two will also have the added attraction of seeing some prodigious talent the likes of Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen and J P Duminy. That aside, the new venues will further enhance the fan base for the league.

“We are satisfied that we have created a global cricketing entertainment product, which is generating its strength from the millions of fans and sponsors alike and that is the success of the DLF Indian Premier League,” added Dubash.“IPL’s success has provided monetary rewards apart from honour and pride, not only for the players, the BCCI and the cricketing fraternity. At modest estimates, the IPL involves around a total of US $ 2.5-billion in terms of overall revenue. But the BCCI has stressed from the very beginning that the monies earned through the IPL will be ploughed back into the game. The money will be used to build infrastructure for cricket and will be utilised to help the game progress and develop at the grass roots level.”
Source – newsonline.co.za

Two years ago, a multiplex in Mumbai’s hip suburb Versova decided to screen the T20 World Cup final between India and Pakistan. The logistics
were all worked out in just 48 hours. This involved hiring a projector and getting the support of the local cable network.

Devang Sampat, senior vice-president, Cinemax, decided to devote four of his six screens — two of these were the high-end Red Lounge ones. The total capacity was 1,000 seats. It was a complete sellout and, in the process, two corporate bookings from Citibank and Provogue were clinched. At a handy Rs 500 a seat, he added a cool Rs 5 lakh to his kitty after three hours.

Of course the price came with the incentive of unlimited beer. “This was a one-off thing and was after all an India-Pakistan final. The response was bound to be good,” says Sampat candidly.

With the IPL2 now shifting to South Africa, the theatres offer the next best option to a live experience. There is also a tangible business opportunity for distributors and theatres — all this comes with great viewing experience for the cricket fans. The IPL had recognised this and put in a tender for the same.

The multiplex players realise the potential that can be tapped. Now, with circumstances putting the whole game into a spin, the last date for submitting the tender was extended from March 16 by two weeks. The initial reaction from industry, both the advertising and film industries, for these rights was positive with names like UTV, Eros, UFO, PVR, Group M and WSG all heard to be in the fray.

Very soon, most lost interest. One of the main reasons could be the sum that had to be paid as minimum guarantee to IPL worked out to be uneconomical with talks of rights being given only for a year making it even more unviable. Figures being quoted for the same ranged between Rs 25-50 crore.
Source – economictimes.indiatimes.com