England star Kevin Pietersen will have a bunch of “naughty’ and “hottie” cheerleaders rooting from the sidelines when he makes his Indian Premier League debut on Saturday.

Pietersen, bought by the Bangalore Royal Challengers for a record 1.55 million dollars, will clash with good friend Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals on the opening night in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Royal Challengers, owned by flamboyant liquor and airline tycoon Vijay Mallya, had hired the Washington Redskins cheerleaders for the inaugural IPL season last year in India.

The scantily-clad girls obviously failed to inspire as the Royal Challengers finished seventh out of eight teams in the glitzy Twenty20 tournament.

So Mallya dropped the Redskins and hired 24 members of the US-based Varsity cheerleader group for the second season, renaming them the “White Mischief Gals”.

“A little bit naughty, a little more hottie and a lot more mischievous,” a Mallya company release said of the group, named after his ‘White Mischief’ brand of vodka.

“Necklines plunging, hemlines rising, they are all set to let the mercury soar, higher than any of the sixes that come from the blades of Kevin Pietersen.”

The cheerleaders, the release added, have been “specially trained in flirty acrobatic skills for a scintillating on-field performance.”

The use of cheerleading squads last year provoked complaints from some conservative quarters in India.

The Mumbai Indians forced their cheerleaders to don pants instead of skirts after protests from political parties.

The White Mischief Gals will travel across South Africa for all Royal Challenger matches during the five-week tournament, offering fans “flirtatious messages and tips,” the statement said.

Pietersen will only enjoy their support for the first two weeks, as he is due to return to England in early May to prepare for the Test series against the West Indies.
Source – google.com

An Indian domestic competition played in South Africa, featuring Australians and big dollars?

If anyone had predicted that several years ago they’d either have lost all their credibility or be running the IPL.

The initial wow factor has been lost from the IPL, now in its second running, but there will be more than just passing curiosity in this year’s tournament, which begins in Cape Town on Saturday.

How the competition is received in South Africa, this year’s host due to fears over player safety in India while it is in election mode, is just one of many talking points.

Twenty20 cricket is tailor-made for night. It is the showbiz arm of the game. It’s loud, there’s bright lights, Bollywood stars and starlets and plenty of X-factor. What’s more, it’s great TV.

But the decision to make sure the matches are held in friendly hours for Indian TV means that every match will start in daylight in South Africa.

Several players have already bemoaned the expected loss of atmosphere as a result of the tournament being moved from cricket-mad India, but their six-figure salaries will offer some solace.

The big losers will be the fans and TV audiences, unless our South African brethren display their love for the game in a manner hitherto unseen in that country.

Australians wanting to watch the matches better enter the 21st century. ONE – Network Ten’s new 24-hour free-to-air sports channel which is available only on High Definition TV – is the only place to watch it.

Even with the Australian side on tour in the UAE and several big names sitting out the competition to rest ahead of a busy winter schedule, there’ll still be a strong Australian flavour in the IPL.

There’s 32 players and coaches involved in the eight franchises.

Shane Warne, captain-coach of inaugural champions Rajasthan Royals, is back as are fellow international retirees Glenn McGrath (Delhi Daredevils), Matthew Hayden (Chennai Super Kings) and Adam Gilchrist (Deccan Chargers).

Shane Watson (Rajasthan Royals), Andrew McDonald (Delhi Daredevils), Brad Hodge and David Hussey (Kolkata Knight Riders) head a list of Ashes aspirants involved.

Then there’s Symonds (Deccan), and India’s favourite Australian Brett Lee (Kings XI Punjab), who will both be proving their fitness for England after undergoing surgery in recent months.

The biggest name, however, is Warne, arguably the greatest cricketer the world has seen since Don Bradman.

Despite being months away from his 40th birthday, that won’t stop Warne from showing the young bucks how it’s done.

Only Warne could turn the IPL’s cheapest playing roster, which included once bitter enemy Graeme Smith, into a champion team. That done without the aid of a coach, such little respect does Warne have for such people.

Should he continue to star, don’t be surprised if the champion leg-spinner again has to deflect rumours he’s coming out of retirement. They are sure to surface in the build-up to the Ashes.

With countries yet to finalise their squads for the ICC World Twenty20 on the horizon, there’s more than just big bucks on the line.

Players such as Moises Henriques, David Warner, Shane Harwood and Robert Quiney are several relatively unheralded Australians who can feature prominently in selections discussions for the tournament in England with strong showings in the IPL.
Source – sportal.com.au

When the glitz and the glamour of the build-up to the Indian Premier League makes way for cricket action Saturday, past form will not count for much. Defending champions the Rajasthan Royals could find it tough this time around, starting with their opening clash against Bangalore Royal Challengers in the second match of a double header which gets the five-week, 2009 tournament underway.

Mumbai Indians meet Chennai Super Kings, who were runners-up last year, in the early match.

The relocation of the world’s richest cricket league from India to South Africa means that conditions will be different, with seam bowlers likely to get far more assistance than they did in the inaugural tournament in India last year.

The Royals had an early taste of the Newlands pitch in a warm-up match last weekend when batsmen struggled to play the sort of dominating innings that marked the first IPL.

It is a major blow for the champions will be without all-rounder Shane Watson and left-arm fast bowler Sohail Tanvir, two of the main match-winners for the underdogs who spent the least money on players but carried away the 1.2-million-dollar prize money.

The Royals, who will again be led by veteran Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne, will hope that Indian fast bowler Munaf Patel and South Africa’s Morne Morkel can compensate for the loss of the two stars.

In contrast to the Royals, the Challengers spent big but achieved little in the first IPL, finishing seventh of the eight teams.

They are likely to be an improved side, however, with star English signing Kevin Pietersen leading the team in the only stages of the tournament and tough South African Ray Jennings cracking the whip as coach.

The Bangalore team will be boosted by the signing of Indian batsman Robin Uthappa, while South African fast bowler Dale Steyn is likely to be more effective on his home country pitches than he was in India.

South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis and leading Indian batsman Rahul Dravid will be expected to improve on mediocre performances last time.

The battle between the Mumbai and Chennai franchises should get the tournament off to a cracking start.

Mumbai Indians will be led by Indian icon Sachin Tendulkar, who missed most of the first series because of injury.

Their squad had a pre-season training camp in South Africa under the direction of Shaun Pollock, appointed as team mentor, and fielding ace Jonty Rhodes.
Source – thenews.com.pk

Shane Warne’s midas touch to minnows Rajasthan Royals in the inaugural IPL season may be a part of cricketing folklore but a new book reveals that the Australian spin legend was not the original choice for captaincy.

In their book ‘IPL – an inside story’, Alam Srinivas and T R Vivek say Jaipur owner Manoj Badale was “saddled with Warne” by chance in the first players’ auction.

“In fact, Warne was never the over-riding original choice for the captaincy of the Jaipur team. Badale made it clear during an exclusive e-mail interview with us. ‘Warne’s views

could only be factored in after the first (players’) auction and it is clear given the choice of Graeme Smith, that we did not build a team around Warne. But rather we picked a team based on individual roles and records”.

The book gave an eyewitness version, by a franchise CEO, of the first auction where Jaipur just happened to buy Warne because no one else was buying him and the auction appeared to be in disaster.

“Warne’s was the first name that came up as the 78 players’ names were picked up. But no one was willing to pick him up at the reserve price. The auction was headed for disaster within the first few minutes.

“Since (Lalit) Modi has some interest in the Jaipur team he made an eye contact with Badale and Co. and nudged them to start bidding. Jaipur raised the placard… hoping other teams would jump into the fray… But no other team bid for Warne. Jaipur, it seemed, was saddle with Warne.”

The authors also wrote that the legendary spinner was “not a strategist” but someone who can just goad people to give 100 per cent on the field.

They said Warne was an “insecure” person who feels “compelled to be liked by others” and is greedy for praise.

“…It is his ability to earn respect and love of his teammates. Warne can goad people to give 100 per cent on the field,” the authors wrote.

“Excuse me, you would say, but isn’t that what captaincy is all about? Isn’t that how Ganguly and Ponting became great captains?… please read our words carefully. We never said that Warne is not a good leader. All we said was that he is not a strategist,” they argued.

“Even his trait to extract the best out of his players, to make them die rather than fail only proves it,” they added.

The book also attempted to justify their point with Warne’s coach Terry Jenner’s view on the bowler’s behaviour. “He (Jenner) could see something else too, behind the bravado, that many people missed, and this was the insecurity that is so obvious in Warne today. He desperately wanted people to like him, to praise him, to say how good he was,” the book quoted from Paul Barry’s biography on Warne.

“Warne will only listen to people that he thinks can help him go somewhere. He shies away from control, authority or demands for rational behaviour. In its extreme form this syndrome is a mental illness called narcissistic personality disorder; Warne appears to be suffering from milder version,” the book added from Warne’s biography.

The authors observed: “Therefore, throughout the IPL, one witnessed this twin emotions in Warne’s captaincy. He went out of his way to be loved by his teammates and rejected anything that did not fit his scheme of things.”
Source – cricket.expressindia.com

With last year’s player of the tournament absent due to national commitments, and two others who’re among the highest-paid stars also missing, Australia’s contingent at the start of the second IPL season will be more notable for who’s not playing than those who make the trip to South Africa

There’ll still be retired spin bowling great Shane Warne leading the way as captain and coach of the defending champion Rajasthan Royals, but Warne will be missing a key ingredient from last year, player of the inaugural Indian Premier League Twenty20 season Shane Watson.

The 26-year-old Watson, who scored 472 runs at an average of 42 in the IPL last year, has returned from injury and was named in the Australian limited-overs squad for a series against Pakistan in Dubai and Abu Dhabi beginning next Wednesday _ four days after the IPL starts.

Also missing will be troubled allrounder Andrew Symonds, who was been out of the Australian lineup for several months until his recall for the Pakistan series, and fast bowler Brett Lee, who was initially named in squad to play Pakistan but was later ruled out and replaced by Doug Bollinger.

Lee, at least, will continue to train in South Africa with his Indian Premier League franchise, Kings XI Punjab, to further his rehabilitation from ankle and foot operations. But if he’s cleared to play, it’s expected that will be for Australia before he sees any action for his IPL franchise.

Symonds would have been the fourth-highest salary earner at $1.35 million with Deccan Chargers in the IPL this season (behind England’s Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff and India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni).

Lee was set to make $900,000, which would have put him at No. 10 in the 2009 earnings list.

Salaries are paid on a pro-rata basis for the foreign stars, so the more matches they play, the more they earn. The Australians on national team duties will get a chance to return to the IPL later in the tournament.

Also among the absent Australians is test skipper Ricky Ponting, who is being rested to prepare for the Ashes campaign against England in two months.

Australian Michael Hussey will also not play in this year’s IPL in order to rest for the Ashes. Hussey would have been available for only the final two weeks of the IPL, which ends with the final on May 24 in Johannesburg.

Michael Clarke, who will captain Australia in Ponting’s absence against Pakistan _ that series ends May 7 _ and pace bowler Mitchell Johnson, will also miss this year’s IPL. Clarke and Johnson did not play in the inaugural IPL and did not nominate for the player auction earlier this year.

Ponting is expected back as skipper for Twenty20 World Cup in June and the Ashes.

“Right at the moment I feel like I need to get away and have a bit of a break, so that’s the way it is,” said Ponting, who was given a release for the 2009 season by the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise which is coached by ex-Australia coach John Buchanan.

Lee, a 76-test veteran, is pushing to reclaim his place in the Australian attack for the Ashes series. So IPL’s loss might be Australia’s gain for the crucial series against England. He joined the Kings XI Punjab squad in South Africa to practice because wet whether in Sydney was limiting his time in the nets.

“Now that he’s here in South Africa with his IPL team, when he is ready to bowl again there’ll be no excuses for weather or anything,” Ponting said of Lee. “He should be able to get a lot of bowling done and when he’s fit enough and ready to play, hopefully he’ll be playing for us because that’s what he wants. We need to see him back in Australian colors.”

The eight-team, 59-match IPL tournament, switched to South Africa from India due to security concerns because of clashing dates with the general elections, begins Saturday.
Source – etaiwannews.com