The brains behind the Indian Premier League (IPL) spoke of conquering the world and turning Kolkata Knight Riders into the new Manchester United, but his attempts at gravitas were hamstrung by his announcement that he would be embracing the modern age via a beauty pageant.

Meanwhile, François Pienaar, the South Africa rugby union captain who lifted the World Cup in 1995, shared a stage with Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood star best known in Britain for being shouted at by Jade Goody, while a marketing guru quoted Malcolm X and said that it was better than working with Mickey Mouse. Tomorrow, a cricket tournament will try to break out of its spandex hotpants.

Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has pulled off a minor miracle in switching the Twenty20 tournament to South Africa in the space of a month, but his football analogies invite fresh scepticism. “My only choice was to turn it into an opportunity,” he said of the bombs that prompted the move to a new continent. “Now we hope IPL teams become worldwide teams like Manchester United and Chelsea. That’s the objective and we are able to turn that into a reality now.

“Our aim is to build fanbases across the world. In England you have EPL [the Barclays Premier League] and they all have fans all over the world. My son likes Manchester United. He has never been to a game but watches religiously on television. We want people to get attached to teams and it’s a huge opportunity to build IPL as a global brand.” Modi has worked wonders, aided by Pienaar and Etienne de Villiers, whose marketing background embraces executive roles with the ATP tour and Walt Disney. The opening four matches in Cape Town, featuring the million-dollar men Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff among others, are sold out, despite an extra 5,000 seats being installed at Newlands.

The IPL knockers have poured scorn on the way eight “franchises” were contrived from an auction bankrolled by celebrities and industrialists, but South Africa is ambivalent about the mercenary machinations and is lapping it up. The emphasis is on what Shetty called an amalgam of sport and entertainment, but Modi’s claim that it has been “smooth sailing all the way” here serves only to underscore the problems elsewhere.

Pakistan’s players have threatened legal action after being excluded, protesting in Lahore under the banner “pay us or play us”, while Modi’s name is reportedly on the hitlist of an underworld gang, D Company. An intercepted telephone call allegedly suggested that Modi could be the target of an assassination attempt, but he was dancing on the top deck of the lead float at the launch parade yesterday while IPL security agents mingled with the crowd.

De Villiers cited Malcolm X’s remark that “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” to suggest that the IPL was about modern India. Hence, the Miss Bollywood SA competition, where a fan at each match will be selected on her looks by a panel of judges. It sounds a crass anachronism but Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood heart-throb and Kolkata owner, dismissed claims of prejudice, saying: “All sexual decisions I leave to Lalit.”

Pienaar tried to push the sporting issues, saying how it would be fascinating to see enemies team up as friends and vice versa. Pietersen and Flintoff, that brace of deposed England captains, go head to head in Port Elizabeth on Monday when Royal Challengers Bangalore take on Chennai Super Kings. It is an intriguing prospect but will tell us little about their capacity for reinvention.

However, those damning the IPL might ask whether the England team’s recent past, comprising multiple captains, a mutinous pedalo and Paul Collingwood in a lap-dancing club, has been any less of a circus.

The only trouble with Modi’s plans for the new Manchester United is that, while people here are talking IPL, nobody is talking about who will win.
Source – timesonline.co.uk

The Indian Premier League will return to India next year, but the long-term vision is to turn it into a global brand, in much the same
way as the English Football Premier League, IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi said here on Thursday.

“Spectators will see the world’s best players playing competitive cricket, and it’s made more compelling because of the competitive instincts of the players,” Modi told a large international media contingent at the International Convention Centre.

An important aspect of the marketing of the competition is advertising and 120 million rands has been earmarked to attract spectators to the games. The organisers are also spending time on local radio stations, introducing the players in the eight teams that are vying for the top spot.

“The heat is on” campaign with thousands of street pole posters in major cities across the country and three full-page ads in single editions of every national and regional daily and weekly newspaper is arguably the largest media spend by any sporting authority in the country’s history, and is aimed at providing a taste of India to local spectators.

A part of the ‘taste of India’ is a new initiative, which sees a Miss Bollywood SA competition, with one young woman spectator nominated from each of the 56 league matches going through to a final, where a panel will select the winner, who wins a role in a Bollywood movie and a trip to India.

Modi said he knows he made the right decision in bringing the second Twenty20 cricket competition to South Africa because of security concerns during the general elections that started off in India Thursday, though he conceded that moving the competition here was disappointing for the Indian fans, young and old.
Source – economictimes.indiatimes.com

Bollywood glitz and cricket razzmatazz combined in a colourful, star-studded parade through Cape Town on Thursday as the 2009 Indian Premier League made its high-profile brash entrance.

Nine floats, one for each of the eight teams plus one for the IPL, made their way along one of the main streets, accompanied by energetic Indian dancers and brass bands drawn from the local community.

More than 150 cricketers were in attendance, as were Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty, part-owners of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals respectively.

Hundreds of people lined the streets to watch the parade, which launched festivities that will run until the grand final in Johannesburg on May 24.

One of the tournament’s initiatives aimed at maintaining the buoyant atmosphere is the introduction of a Miss Bollywood South Africa competition with contestants drawn from fans attending matches.

The idea came from IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, who has employed the help of the three Bollywood idols associated with the tournament.

“We’re looking for someone who has the star quality to stand out in a crowd, probably without even trying that hard,” Modi explained at the launch of the concept in Cape Town.

“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.”

One Miss Bollywood of the Day will be found at each of the 56 round-robin matches and stands a chance of winning a trip to India, a role in a Bollywood film and 5,590 dollars.

“Star searches like this are a really great way to find people who may never even have thought that they have what it takes to really make it big,” said Khan, the so-called ‘King of Bollywood’.

“The heart of our idea is to search the crowd at IPL matches for someone who has the attitude and appearance that automatically draws the eye.

“It will be the kind of person who is not necessarily showing off for the camera, but who can mesmerise even total strangers.

“The announcement of the winner will be shown during a ‘strategy break’ and will be declared Miss Bollywood of the Day.”

Source – .google.com

Kings XI Punjab failed to score 19 off the last over as they lost to Chevrolet Warriors by 10 runs in their warm-up T20 match.

Set a target of 152 to win, Kings XI Punjab could only manage 141 for six as they lost wickets at regular intervals at Sahara Oval St George’s Park.

Australian Simon Katich (12), Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara (16) and Englishman Ravi Bopara (24) all got starts before losing their wickets.

It was left to middle order batsman Taruwar Kohli to take the charge and he brought Kings XI close to the target with 19 runs needing off the last over off Warren Bell.

Kohli’s partner at the other end Karan Goel raised hopes for Kings XI when he smashed a straight six from the first ball of ultimate over to leave the equation at 13 off the remaining five deliveries.

However, destiny had other things in stored as Kohli was run out by wicketkeeper Davy Jacobs two balls later, and Bell was bang on his task, conceding only two singles in the remaining three deliveries to give see his side home.

Kohli made 36 runs off 26 deliveries which was studded with two fours and equal number of sixes.

For Chevrolet Warriors, pacer Bell was the most successful bowler, scalping the wickets of Katich and Bopara for 22 runs while Jon-Jon Smuts took the wicket of dangerous Sangakkara.

Earlier, VRV Singh picked four for 24 to restrict the Warriors to 151 for five after the South African side were asked to bat first with Colin Ingram hitting an unbeaten half century (57).

Shoddy fielding was the order of the day for Kings XI as they dropped as many as five catches.

The Warriors were quick to capitalise on the errors and Ingram played some delightful strokes en route his 57-run innings, although he was lucky to have survived after being bowled off a no-ball by Vikramjit Malik.

He faced 43 balls and stroked five fours and two sixes in his innings.
Source – espnstar.com

Telecom service provider Virgin Mobile Wednesday launched an online cricket fantasy game, Indian Hatke League (IHL), with an aim to leverage the cricket mania during the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
The online game will provide users the option to play for any of the eight teams participating in the 47-day IPL, to be held in South Africa April 18-May 24, while their scores on the basis of performance will determine their standings.

Launching the game here, Virgin Mobile chief executive M.A. Madhusudan said the initiative was strictly a “brand-building exercise”.

“We have launched the game for the Indian youth and not just for Virgin Mobile customers. The players will compete against each other during the period with the prospect to win prizes at the end of the tournament,” he said.

The company is offering Hyundai’s recently launched hatchback i20, Sony’s video game console Play Station and Virgin Mobile handsets as prizes to the winners of the IHL game.

According to reports, the company earlier had plans to be part of the Twenty20 extravaganza by striking sponsorship deals with Delhi Daredevils, but it pulled out as the tournament’s venue was shifted to South Africa.
Source – thaindian.com