Almost half of Australia’s contracted cricketers would consider quitting international cricket to play in the new Indian Twenty20 leagues.

The figure is contained in a survey of the country’s elite players conducted by the Australian Cricketers Association, and raises the possibility that some players could choose not to renew Cricket Australia contracts and instead maximise their earnings in the Indian Premier League.

Asked whether they would consider early retirement from international cricket to play in either the IPL or its unsanctioned competitor, the Indian Cricket League, 47 per cent of players contracted to Cricket Australia and 49 per cent of state players answered “yes”.

Source : stuff.co.nz

In one of the setbacks to IPL – Indian Premier League, English cricket chief Giles Clarke has warned England stars to participate in IPL He said that featuring in the Indian Premier League will jeopardise their international futures – and hopes of regaining the Ashes.England’s star names will not feature in the IPL as it clashes with the Test series against New Zealand, and Clarke does not expect coach Peter Moores to release players for the 2009 tournament.

Clarke, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, said: “I couldn’t see anyone centrally contracted playing. I can’t see Peter Moores determining that he wishes to release him.”
This came after star cricketer Pietersen had said that players should be allowed to play IPL

Shahrukh Khan Or most commonly known as King Khan has now decided to sing – yes thats right.King Khan will sing a song composed by Bappi Lahiri for his Indian Premier League team, Kolkata Knight Riders’.

Confirming the news that Shahrukh Khan will indeed sing to Bappi Lahiri’s tune, Bappida says, “I am composing two songs for SRK’s Knight Riders one of which will be sung by Shah Rukh and the other by Usha Uthup.”

Mumbai Indians have got the famous cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle as the advisor for there team. Mumbai’s team of the Indian Premier League (IPL). “We are going to take great care to see that everyone integrates together because people are coming from different places. We have got a lot of youngsters from Maharashtra as well, from Mumbai itself,” said Bhogle.

“We’ll find the result when we get that. I don’t think it’ll be a major problem because luckily the kind of players we have got especially senior players are all fantastic team players,” he added.

Injured Sudeep Tyagi was replaced by 24-year old Punjab all-rounder Manpreet Gony for the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) starting April 18. Chief selector of the The Chennai Super Kings V.B. Chandrasekar said: “Gony was very much in the loop. Now that Tyagi is injured, we have decided to sign up Gony as a replacement as allowed by the IPL Board.”

Chandrasekar added that Gony was highly recommended by Bhupinder Singh, one of the national selectors and has performed well in the Deodhar and Ranji Trophy matches.“Gony is six feet, four inches tall. He bowls with reasonable pace and can hit the ball hard. He is the right kind of player for our team and has done fairly well in the Deodhar and Ranji games,” Chandrasekar added.