Sussex have told cricket bosses that they are prepared to stage Indian Premier League matches if the tournament is played in England.

IPL chiefs are set to make a decision on where this year’s event will take place today, with South Africa also in the running.

Organisers were forced to move the five-week, 59 match event, which is due to start on April 10, from India because the government could not guarantee security during elections.

The IPL are keen that games involving the eight franchises and the world’s top players are staged at Test match venues.

But Sussex chairman Jim May has told the ECB: “We’d love to have games at Hove.”

He said: “We would love to be involved. Our ground is in fantastic condition and we could stage a game at Hove tomorrow.

“We have first-class practice facilities both indoors and outdoors, floodlights, great hotels and good connections between here and London.

“I know the IPL organisers have said they want to use Test grounds but surely it is better to hold the games in smaller stadiums which are full.”

IPL organisers are visiting South Africa and England today to discuss the logistics of switching the tournament before making their final decision.

May added: “It is an enormous logisitical exercise but if the will is there I’m sure we can stage it.

“I will be speaking to (ECB chief executive) David Collier to also ensure there is an equitable distribution of profits whoever stages the matches.”

Meanwhile, Sussex missed their chance of qualifying for tomorrow’s Pro Arch Trophy final after a disappointing 47-run defeat to Essex in Abu Dhabi last night.

Sussex were unfortunate to come up against a paceman in the middle of a hot pre-season streak in Essex’s Jamaica-born strike bowler Maurice Chambers.

The 21-year-old returned excellent figures of 5-42 after ripping out the heart of the Sussex middle order and effectively leave their chances of qualifying from the group stages in tatters.

Sharks made a nervy start in responding to the Essex total of 237-7, losing both century-makers from Saturday’s win in Sharjah, Ed Joyce and Chris Nash, early in the pursuit.

Joyce snicked a good leg-cutter from David Masters to the keeper to go for nine then Nash, on 40, suffered his second run out in three innings in the UAE.

Mike Yardy gave Sussex hope with an idiosyncratic 64-ball half century as he put on a 98-run fifth wicket partnership with Ben Brown, whose own 50 came from only 51 deliveries, But Chambers returned to have Yardy superbly caught at extra cover and then have Robin Martin-Jenkins caught behind off a skier after attempting a hurried pull at Chambers’ next ball.

And when Brown flat-batted to backward point to go for 65 the Sussex tail crumbled meekly as Essex wrapped up their win with 26 balls to spare.

It completed a miserable day for the Sharks who bowled too full a length on a docile pitch.

Jason Gallian (70), Matt Walker (53) and ten Doeschate, with 84 from only 73 balls, all cashed in on some inviting half-volleys, so much so that Yardy turned to nine bowlers in abid to stem the flow of runs.

Only Ragheb Aga with 2-27 generated sufficient pace to catch the eye and trouble the experienced Essex middle order.

Sussex coach Mark Robinson, said: “We didn’t particularly bowl as well as we would have liked and also, if I’m honest, we used this game to experiment a little bit.

“We’ve come out here to find out about how people respond to being thrown into different situations. ‘Yards’ was keen to challenge the bowlers to bowl in unusual stages of the game, hence we had two spinners on toward the end and bought Tom Smith on during a power-play.

“We wanted to see who could withstand the pressure and who might become good options for us when the games happen for real.

“We let them get away and get a few too many but that made for a good chase. For a long time I felt we were in the game, with ‘Yards’ and Ben Brown in there we were still in with a fight.

“I felt if we’d batted out our overs we might still have got close but we kept losing wickets at the wrong time.”

Though sad to miss out on playing in the final of this eight-team pre-season event Robinson preferred to look at the bigger picture.

He added: “Of course we don’t like losing, I’m not going to lie about that because we’d much rather be playing in the final than in a play-off game against Surrey, but we are here to learn things about our group of players.

“Sometimes you learn things you don’t want to. You find out certain players can’t do things at certain stages of a game but knowing that can be just as important in this game when it comes to sending a side out.”
Source – theargus.co.uk

Shoaib Akhtar is hopeful the Indian Premier League (IPL)’s impending move to South Africa or England could pave the way for Pakistani players to return to the lucrative Twenty20 tournament.

In an interview to a cricket website, Shoaib said he and his Pakistani counterparts were holding out hope of an eleventh-hour call-up to the IPL, now that the tournament seems destined to be shifted out of India.

“For me, it ain’t over till it’s over,” Shoaib said. “I haven’t given up. It’s up to the franchises. If they call upon my services, I will provide them.

“We do not have great circumstances with India at the moment. The situation between us is not crictical anymore, and hopefully it will get better in the coming months. It is a shame for the Indian fans that the tournament will not be played in India.For now I am preparing to play against Australia in the ODIs next month and take wickets for my country.”
Source – apakistannews.com

Indian Premier League Commissioner Lalit Modi will meet Cricket South Africa CEO Gerald Majola at an undisclosed venue this afternoon to discuss the possibility of hosting the second edition of the Twenty20 event here.”Cricket South Africa’s CEO, Gerald Majola, is due to meet with the Indian Premier League commissioner, Lalit Modi, in South Africa this afternoon at an undisclosed venue to discuss IPL hosting issues,” the CSA said in a statement.

The outcome of the meeting would be conveyed later, the cricket board said.

According to sources, Modi will check out the possibility of hosting the event here after the government back home had an issue with the dates of the tournament which clash with the Lok Sabha elections.

Modi is expected to leave Johannesburg for London this evening. He is expected to hold talks with the England and Wales Cricket Board there, exploring the possibility of hosting the league there.

South Africa, however, has an edge over England as a potential host of the cash-rich event because of the good weather in the April-May period.
Source – business-standard.com

It will be a little difficult to swallow at first. The players themselves have spoken about the confusion over ‘home and away’ matches. There is concern that crowds may not be as supportive of the city-teams when they move to play abroad. Experts on television have drawn derisive laughter over the question: ‘How do you expect a supporter in Yorkshire to get excited over a team from Chennai?’

But the fact is, Twenty20 and IPL are rewriting not just the rules of cricket, but carrying it forward into the new century.

Many years ago in an essay on the future of sport, I had written that international sport would break away from the narrow confines of nationalism, time and place. The example I gave then were the Olympic Games, which was an exercise in jingoism (the examples are too well known to bear repetition here), and thanks to the arrival of sponsors and
professional athletes might soon become a set of competitions among corporate houses rather than countries. Coke and Pepsi and Adidas, and many such would be in the happy position of being able to call upon their players from across the world to participate in their colours.

This is already happening with Formula One. It is Ferrari versus McLaren versus Renault and so on. Drivers are professionals hired for their sporting prowess and not dependant on country of origin. It is Ferrari which wins, not Italy. The only concession to tradition is the playing of the national anthem, which, considering everything, is incongruous.

Now IPL is set to take cricket in the direction of Formula One. This is sport in the post-modern world, not restricted by boundaries, geographical or otherwise. The IPL’s claim that city-teams and city-loyalties were being encouraged always sounded hollow anyway. Now, with the caravan moving to England or South Africa, the spin doctors will try to top their original spin doctoring.

Cricket has long ceased to be a game over 22 yards, and become one that is played over 22 inches (or whatever is the size of your television set). This has already seen competitive matches in countries like Canada, UAE, Singapore, and Morocco which are hardly the bastions of the game. ‘Have television, will play’ is the motto, and it is in keeping with this that the IPL move – despite the tears being shed over it – appears to be
inevitable. The security concerns have merely hastened the process of an international league conceived in India being taken around the world.

That is why the franchisees are not particularly fussed. Firstly, there are enough Indians in most cricket playing countries who can fill a stadium. Then the Shah Rukh Khans and Preity Zintas can strut and wave for the cameras just as effectively from the Wanderers or the Oval. And audiences are just as likely to take to the mixed goodies that come with
having players from different countries in the same team.

Much as Bangalore loves Rahul Dravid, the crowd this year would be more keen on watching Kevin Pietersen. Kolkata worship Sourav Ganguly, but it is Brendon McCullum who sets EdenGardens alight. The IPL loyalties are more individual than team loyalties, more about continuous action regardless of who is providing it. The spin doctors got it wrong the first time. They should have focused on the boundaries (geographical) being erased rather than new ones being drawn.

Cricket, by its nature, is conservative. But Twenty20 is only incidentally about cricket, and therefore is under no obligation to respect hoary traditions. This is not such a bad thing if the more things change (in Twenty20), the more they remain the same (in Test cricket).
Source – blogs.cricinfo.com

There is a calm before a storm. After keeping a low profile for sometime, Shahrukh Khan is all set to storm your television screens. Nothing can stop him from cheering for his IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders and not even the recent surgery on his shoulder.

The second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be played outside India because of the upcoming general elections. Shahrukh knows the buzz will be missing in India but he is certainly not going to miss the fun. He said that he and his Bollywood friends would try to watch maximum number of matches. He added that he would request Lalit Modi, Chairman of the IPL, to reschedule the matches on weekends so that his children could watch it.

Well, Shahrukh Khan roped in Indian celebrities like Karan Johar, Arjun Rampal, Farah Khan, Aziz Mirza, Juhi Chawla, Vivek Oberoi, Sajid Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Chunky Pandey and Arbaaz Khan to cheer for his team Kolkata Knight Riders last year. The story will be different this time around, as the venue for the IPL matches will be away from home. England and South Africa are the favourites to host this year’s IPL.

Well, let’s wait and watch if Shahrukh can pull the crowd outside India.
Source – entertainment.oneindia.in