The 1st match of DLF – IPL was between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Chennai won the toss and decided to field first. Little Master Sachin Tendulkar laid solid foundation for Mumbai Indians by scoring 59 runs not out which helped to put a descent total of 165 at scoreboard. Young talented batsman Abhishek Nayar hit three massive sixes to Flintoff’s over. Drafted from Delhi Daredevils Shikhar Dhawan scored 22 runs. Sanath Jayasuriya scored 26 runs. In reply to this former Australian opener Matthew Hayden hit 44 and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni 36. 1.55-million dollar man Andrew Flintoff scored 24 runs before he was caught and bowled by Harbhajan Singh. Chennai Super Kings manage to scored only 146 for 7 in 20 overs. Fast bowler Lasith Malinga take three for 15 runs in four overs for Mumbai.
Man Of The Match – Sachin Tendulkar
Playing XI –
MI – Sanath Jayasuriya, Sachin Tendulkar (C), Shikhar Dhawan, JP Duminy, Dwayne Bravo, Abhishek Nayar, Pinal Shah (W), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Lasith Malinga, Rohan Raje
CSK – Matthew Hayden, Parthiv Patel (W), Suresh Raina, Subramaniam Badrinath, MS Dhoni (C), Thilan Thushara, Jacob Oram, Andrew Flintoff, Joginder Sharma, Manpreet Gony, Ravichandran Ashwin
Thursday the streets were filled with fanfare as the Indian Premiere League made its entrance into Cape Town. The star studded parade featured nine floats; one for each of the eight teams and one for the Indian Premiere League. Indian dancers and brass bands from the community made their way down the streets with the league.
There were more than one-hundred and fifty cricket players who attended along with Bollywood superstars Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and of course Shilpa Shetty. It was no surprise that they each own teams including the Kolkata Knight Riders, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals.
There were large crowds of people who gathered to watch the parade. The Indian Premiere League parade kicked off festivities that will run until the finals in Johannesburg on May 24. The Indian Premiere League commissioner Lalit Modi also decided to enlist help to find a Miss Bollywood South Africa.
Lalit Modi said “We’re looking for someone who has the star quality to stand out in a crowd, probably without even trying that hard…It’s that special, almost indefinable, quality that makes someone a star more than a beauty queen that we are looking for. IPL matches with their mix of fun and excitement are an excellent environment to identify the kind of person who is a natural stand-out in a big crowd.”
Someone who did stand out in the crowd was the sexy Shilpa Shetty. She always brings energy and fun to any event she gets involved with. That’s why for those of you who couldn’t be at the parade can check out some pictures we got. Take a look and tell us what you think about all the excitement over the Indian Premiere League. Do you think the parade was necessary or do you think that it was too much fuss over a sport? Give us your thoughts on the parade.
Source – desihits.com
After the inaugural ceremony of the Indian Premier League second edition will start with the match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians on Saturday.
The second match will be played between Bangalore Royal Challengers and defending champion Rajasthan Royals.
In all, 59 matches will be played in the tournament.
Before the inaugural ceremony, a gala parade was held on the streets of Cape Town in which all teams participated while riding on trucks.
Bollywood glamour and cricket fraternity combined in the colourful, star-studded parade.
Chennai Super King will be led by Dhoni who is on cloud nine after historic win at New Zealand while the Mumbai Indians are also enthused with the superb form of Sachin Tendulkar.
Bookies have rated CSK as the favourite in the IPL season-2.
Source – samaylive.com
CRICKET Australia has forbidden Shaun Tait from playing in the Indian Premier League, meaning the South Australian quick will forfeit his $500,000 pay cheque from the Rajasthan Royals.
With a watchful eye on its growing ranks of walking wounded fast bowlers, CA has refused to release Tait because, it says, he is yet to recover from a left hamstring tear sustained in February.
But The Weekend Australian understands Tait is close to full fitness after almost two months of a radical treatment involving injections of his own blood into the problem area.
Sources say Tait declared himself fit a fortnight ago, but Cricket Australia refused to give him a clean bill of health. As a nationally-contracted player, Tait must be cleared fit to play by CA.
His manager, Andrew McRitchie, said yesterday the CA decision was “very disappointing” as Tait had been making good progress in his rehabilitation.
“The IPL was the only chance to prove his fitness before the squad for the Twenty20 World Cup was picked,” McRitchie said.
“How he proves that now, I don’t know.”
Tait’s loss is a blow for the Shane Warne-led Royals in the franchise’s bid to claim successive titles in the tournament, which starts in South Africa tonight.
“The excitement of playing alongside Warnie and (for) defending champions Rajasthan was definitely something that has been at the forefront of his mind,” McRitchie said.
“The Royals have been exceptionally understanding and they know that Taity is a long-term prospect for them. Whilst (he remains) a (CA) contracted player he will play by their rules, and Taity understands that.”
McRitchie said a lot of people had said they had Tait’s “best interests at heart”.
“I only hope that ruling him out of any competitive cricket … that this actually is the case.
“Me, I’m not totally convinced but I guess we will see.
“There are no guarantees, but Taity will do whatever he can to not only get passed fit but hopefully spearhead the Aussies to Twenty20 World Cup success.”
Tait is in the 30-man preliminary squad for the Twenty20 World Cup, to be held in England in June.
CA spokesman Peter Young confirmed yesterday Tait’s lack of fitness had ruled him out of the five-week IPL tournament in South Africa.
“Shaun Tait won’t be playing IPL,” Young said. “He’s still working through the rehab program and it has been determined that he won’t be playing IPL.
“He has a hamstring injury and there’s associated issues behind the hamstring injury.”
CA appears loath to gamble on the fast bowler’s fitness given its stock of quicks is already fully stretched by injury.
Brett Lee was this week ruled out of the one-day series against Pakistan in Dubai to allow him more time to recover from ankle surgery.
Stuart Clark has only recently become available after a long lay-off with an elbow problem.
Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus were troubled by injuries in the recent Test series against South Africa and Brett Geeves was sent home from the ensuing one-day series nursing a broken foot.
On top of all this, Shane Watson has missed much of the summer with stress fractures in his back.
Tait’s lingering injury also ruled him out of the Dubai one-dayers.
The express bowler was picked up by the Rajasthan Royals for $US375,000 ($521,702) at the IPL auction in February, in the same week he succumbed to his latest hamstring injury.
The money is paid on a pro-rata basis for each match played.
Tait missed last year’s tournament in April-May because it was held during his self-imposed exile from the game to rest his aching body and tired mind.
The eight IPL franchises will each play 14 round-robin matches before the semi-finals and final from May 22 to 24.
Source – theaustralian.news.com.au
In a bid to win back some of the ground that it has lost to competitors in recent years, broadcaster Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd will ride the popularity of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to relaunch Sony Entertainment Television (SET), its flagship Hindi entertainment channel.
The second season of the successful twenty-over cricket league begins in South Africa on Saturday. Multi Screen Media has exclusive broadcast rights for IPL.According to Danish Khan, marketing head of SET, the relaunch will include a new look as well as a new programming line-up. Beginning 25 May, the day after IPL gets over, SET will sport a new identity in terms of graphical imagery and visuals, as well as a new signature tune.
All this will be complemented with a new set of programmes that include four fiction-based shows and a celebrity-led reality show.
“Till now, we have been doing reasonably well on weekends with movies and talent shows such as Indian Idol and Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, but our weekdays and fiction-based programmes have not been much of a success,” said Khan.
“…there was a need to refresh our offerings,” he added.
In its new avatar, the channel will continue to have serials where there will be a protagonist in an Indian context, but there will be no stereotype shows based on the saas-bahu format, said Khan.
“Similarly, our talent shows will not be just song and dance like every other Hindi entertainment channel on air today, but we will look at other fields. Apart from differentiated content, viewers will find fresh faces and new themes in our programmes,” he said.
One of the shows lined-up for release has been tentatively titled Palampur Express. The show will be based on the story of a female athlete from a small town and will be produced by television (TV) personality and TV content producer Roshan Abbas, a new production partner for the channel.
The network had tried to divert the audiences it had grabbed for the first IPL season in 2008 by launching a big-ticket reality show titled Dus ka Dum. The show was hosted by Bollywood actor Salman Khan. It was on air for three months, but did not do too well.
This year, SET plans to repeat the strategy with more than one new show. Besides, the relaunch will be supported with a marketing campaign that goes on air from 18 April, a day before IPL takes off.
Khan refused to share the amount of money the company is spending to relaunch the channel. He, however, said: “it is safe to say that we will spend 100% more on marketing than what we did last year post-IPL with Dus ka Dum.”
An advertising executive close to the development said SET is expected to spend around Rs25 crore on its promotions alone. The channel’s new advertising campaign will feature a 45-second commercial sporting the tagline, “badal rahe hai aap, badal rahe hai hum,” (you’re changing and so are we). The ad will be aired frequently during IPL broadcast ad breaks.
SET’s brand relaunch comes at a time when the channel, though 14-years-old, was consistently losing ground in the Hindi entertainment space. A number two player till a few years ago, the channel slipped to number three slot and further down to number five and six in the past one year, with the entry of new competitors such as Colors, and NDTV Imagine.
“IPL is the only saving grace for the Sony network…they have had a bad run for the last couple of years,” said a media analyst who did not want to be named. “It is only natural that they (SET) plan their attempts at a recovery around the tournament.”
IPL indeed gave the channel much-needed viewership last year. According to TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd, the Mumbai-based television audience measurement agency—MAX— the channel airing IPL, became number one during the 44 days when the cricket league was being played, garnering an average viewership share of 4.8%.
Source – livemint.com
