Indian Premier League’s Chairman Lalit Modi was among the recipients of the ‘CNBC Awaaz Consumer Awards 2008’ for the Twenty20 league’s phenomenal success in its first year of inception.

The Indian Cricket Board’s vice president, whose brainchild was the multi-million dollar IPL which took the cricket world by storm, won the channel’s newly introduced special category award “for transforming cricket in India”, and was conferred with the honour at a function in Mumbai, a media release said.

Sharad Pawar, who headed the BCCI for three years when the IPL was conceived and put in operation by Modi, said in his speech that the league is one of the strongest brands that India has in the world.

In lighter vein Pawar, the Union Agriculture Minister who relinquished his BCCI post on September 27 after completing his term, wondered who has become a bigger brand — IPL or Modi himself, the release said.

Modi, in his acceptance speech, thanked Pawar for taking the initiative and putting the IPL in place after the idea had been placed on the backburner by the BCCI for many years.

Other special awardees were Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar (Entertainment Brand Ambassador of the Year) and public sector firm BSNL (Hall of Fame), the release said.

The winners of the special category of awards introduced this year were selected through a poll by the channel and a jury panel, the release added.

Source: hindustantimes.com

Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi has stated he is “certain” the second edition of the tournament will feature some of England’s top players.

IPL officials are currently gearing up to follow this year’s hugely successful inaugural Twenty20 event, which saw the Rajasthan Royals emerge victorious.While the majority of cricket’s top nations saw their star players take part in the event, English players were conspicuous by their absence with only Hampshire all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas taking an ultimately peripheral role for Rajasthan.

Participating players have been able to double or even triple their annual incomes through a few weeks with the IPL, with India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni the top earner on US 4.5 million for three seasons with the Chennai Super Kings.However, although there are scheduling issues as the IPL calendar clashes with the English domestic season, Modi is confident the 2009 tournament will see the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff in action.

“As for the influx of English players I am certain that the DLF Indian Premier League will definitely see the likes of Flintoff and Pietersen playing next year,” the IPL chief told PA Sport.In the meantime, Modi, who is now one of the leading figures in world cricket, is promising the 2009 IPL season will be bigger and better than its first outing.However, he has ruled out any immediate prospect of the League expanding from its current eight franchises.

“One can only expect much bigger and better things from the adrenalin packed Twenty20 format, which is fast paced and exciting and so appeals to a global audience,” Modi added.

“As for the DLF Indian Premier League, we have identified areas of improvement around spectator comfort and the in-stadia experience, which we will rigorously implement in the coming season.

“That being done we will also be sitting down with the franchises in October to discuss and evolve improvement areas for the next season.”As of now I do not think we will be adding to the number of franchises. However, that is a decision we will take slightly later in the year.”There is already talk of franchises playing matches overseas and then there is the Champions League Twenty20, which we have just announced.

“As for expanding the number of franchises, that decision will be taken only after the initial three years. All I will say is that the sky is the limit and hopefully our franchisees will utilise these opportunities to their advantage.”
Source: sportinglife.com

The Indian Premier League proved out to be a profitable deal for all eight franchisee owners as they had close to 80% returns after it’s first season, according to the BCCI.

In the two-day AGM at Mumbai, the Indian Cricket Board released the figures. On an average, most franchise owners paid Rs 289 crore to the board as the first annual installment of the amounts they bid to buy their team. In return each team earned around Rs 224 crore under the revenue sharing clause, mostly from TV rights revenues and sponsorship deals.

In fact, overall the IPL declared a profit of Rs 51 crore after paying the teams. Lalit Modi, the IPL Commissioner, said new franchises could sell for at least four times more than the first season.
Source:cricket.ndtv.com

New Delhi, September 29: VVS Laxman, who led the Deccan Chargers in the inaugural Indian Premier League season, was on Monday replaced by former Australia vice-captain Adam Gilchrist to ‘re-unite the outstanding talent’ of the team which ended at the bottom despite its star-studded line-up.

Laxman had drawn criticism from his team member Shahid Afridi who said Twenty20 cricket was not the forte of the Indian batsman after the team managed only two wins from their 14 matches with the likes of Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs, Scott Styris and Rohit Sharma in its ranks.”Adam Gilchrist commands respect within the team and right around the cricket world. He has redefined the role of wicketkeeper/batsman in modern cricket,” said Tim Wright, Chief Executive of Deccan Chargers in a statement issued in New Delhi.

“I am confident Adam Gilchrist will unite Deccan Chargers’ outstanding talent. Four members of our squad were on the India tour of Sri Lanka, more than any other IPL team, and the quality of our overseas players is well known. These players will play for Gilchrist,” he added.Gilchrist, who averaged 47.60 runs in 96 Test Matches and 35.89 runs in 287 One-Day Internationals, helped Australia win the World Cup three times.The wicketkeeper-batsman holds the world Test record for number of sixes hit (100) and has claimed 472 dismissals behind the stumps.

Adam Gilchrist said, “It’s a tremendous thrill and honour to become captain of the Deccan Chargers. I look forward to working hard with everybody towards making the team successful.”

Source:expressindia.com

Far from being a controversy-ridden battle, Australia’s pace spearhead Brett Lee reckons his team’s four-Test series against India will go down as a ‘hallmark of friendship’ because players from both the sides have forgotten about past rows.Indian and Australian players have been involved in several on-field and off-field spats in the recent past, with Andrew Symonds-Harbhajan Singh race row being the ugliest face-offs.

But Lee said the Indian Premier League offered them a good opportunity to clear the air and forge friendships.
“In the IPL the players forged good bonds and the upcoming series will be a new leaf and a new page in the history of both countries.”I am not worried about what had happened in the past but we look to play here in the spirit of the game,” he said.

The Australians are in Jaipur for a couple of practice matches before the official series gets underway in Bangalore with the first Test on October 9.

Source: rediff.com