The Kolkata Knight Riders’ coach, Mr John Buchanan’s idea of multiple captaincy is a mockery of the game, Dilip Vengsarkar (in photo) said here today. Vengsarkar said he would be glad to see Sourav Ganguly back at the helm of the KKR.
“Suppose there is one ball to go and six runs to be scored and then four guys come to advise you. I want Ganguly to go to (Mr) Buchanan and ask him what to do. This is a mockery of the game with four captains telling the captain what to do,” said Vengsarkar, who was here for a product promotion programme.

‘A sell-out show’
Filling stadiums in South Africa will be one of the biggest challenges facing the Indian Premier League but its publicist, Mr Percy Dubash, has expressed confidence that a large number of fans from India and other countries will flock to the country to witness the tournament which starts in Cape Town on 18 April.
“The rainbow nation is a very popular tourist destination and we are certain that a large number of Indians and non-resident Indians will visit the country for the IPL,” Mr Dubash said. “The league is immensely popular with a huge global fan base. The fact that the league also coincides with summer holidays in India also bodes well,” he told SuperSport.
Speaking about the IPL’s success in grabbing worldwide attention, Mr Dubash said: “It is attributable to several factors, including the fact that the on-the-field action in it was truly world class. In most developed economies of the world, live sports play a very integral part of the family experience, be it a National Basketball Association game or an English Premier League game on weekdays or at weekends.
“In a similar vein, I think a void in terms of live entertainment was more than adequately filled by the IPL as it combined some of the best cricket talents in the world with the next generation of Indian talent – everything packaged into a highly entertaining three-hour roller-coaster of fun, excitement, and adrenalin-packed cricket action. That is exactly the reason why the IPL managed to capture the imagination of an entire nation, and more importantly the world.”
Mr Dubash claimed that the IPL had brought in a whole lot of financial benefits. “The IPL’s success has provided monetary rewards – apart from honour and pride – not only to the players but to the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the cricketing fraternity as a whole. At modest estimates, the IPL involves around a total of $ 2.5 billion in terms of overall revenue. But the BCCI has stressed from the very beginning that money earned through the IPL will be ploughed back into the game,” he said.
The IPL publicist also informed the Press that an elite team of 15 former players would be the commentators for the event.
Heading the list will be Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Ramiz Raja and assisting them will be Arun Lall, Simon Doull, Pommie Mbangwa, Kepler Wessels, L Sivaramkrishnan, Robin Jackman, Danny Morrison, Ranjit Fernando, Alastair Campbell, Abbas Ali Baig, Greg Blewett and Jeremey Coney.
Source – thestatesman.net

THE IPL going overseas to South Africa has its own advantages. Shah Rukh Khan has finally selected two beauties to join his cheerleader’s team in South Africa. The cricket lovers back home would be disappointed that they would not be able to cheer for their teams in the field and that the hype would be at a lesser degree, but the organisers of IPL-2 have plenty of reasons to be happy about. One of these happiness factors pertains to the cheerleaders and their dress code which will be free from the shackles that weighed them down in the inaugural session.

Last time around, there were plenty of controversies and the beauties were not allowed to be free with their actions. Maharashtra had banned the glamour quotient. The girls had to curtail their activities and appeared to be disinterested in the whole affair. They had to keep their vital assets properly covered and be subdued. They must have wondered – why such double standards? Bollywood movies grant permission to actresses to show their all without any questions asked. Switch to any music channel and the music videos appear to be interested only in such numbers that exhibit revealing dresses. Some of the videos have foreigners to make up the crowds and they also dance to the tunes. Why then the discrimination against the cheerleaders of cricket?

Anyway, the famous adage goes — out of sight, out of mind. IPL2 players enjoy the freedom in South Africa, away from the eyes of the moral police. Your city folks might not be there to applaud your heroics but the cheerleaders will certainly be there to cheer your 4s and 6s – and there will not be any objections to the girls baring the maximum.

Delhi Dearedevils manager T.A. Sekar is upbeat about the team’s chances in the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and feels it is the most balanced side in the Twenty20 competition.
With a good mix of hard-hitting batsmen, all-rounders and steady bowling, the team has plenty of options, Sekar said.

The induction of five more international players this season has added to the strength of the side that reached the semi-final last year.

“Delhi Daredevils walk into the IPL with probably the most balanced combination,” Sekar said.

“We have the best opening pair in the world in Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, both of whom are in excellent form. Then we have A.B. de Villiers and Dilshan Tillakaratne, who were important to the team last year,” Sekar was quoted as saying by Daredevils website.

Australia’s latest sensation David Warner is the biggest catch for Daredevils this season. They have also brought two other Australian players – all-rounder Andrew McDonald and Dirk Nannes. Former England One-day captain Paul Collingwood, one of the most athletic fielders in the world and Owais Shah were also picked up in the second IPL auction in Goa.

“Our gameplan was to get a couple of hard-hitting batsmen and a couple of all-rounders into the side.”

“Kiwi skipper Daniel Vettori and India spinner Amit Mishra will be a vital part of the team,” Sekar said.

“Among the new-ball bowlers, there will be sufficient options. We have the legendary Glenn McGrath, Farveez Maharoof of Sri Lanka, Collingwood, Dirk Nannes, and Ashish Nehra will lend solidity to the bowling line-up.”
Source – thaindian.com

The first season was expected to get sparks flying around everywhere, with the amount of money being poured into the game, the tournament was scrutinised from different aspects.

Apart from the high scores on the ground the franchisees expected high revenues off it. According to Manish Porwal, Chief Executive, Percept Talent Management, “The IPL was either going to be big or bust”. The cricket had over delivered in terms of entertainment.

The IPL almost became like a daily soap with housewives being more keen in test records of Albie Morkel than the usual kitchen politics. Lalit Modi had been smart by staging the event in the summer season which was a lean season otherwise.

Apart from Modi, two franchisees stand out with respect to being smart buyers. They are the defending champions Rajasthan Royals and the GMR team, Delhi Daredevils.

Rajasthan Royals, was the cheapest franchisee coming to Manoj Badale, Chairman, Emerging Media for US $ 67 million. Apart from being the cheapest franchisee, they made some very smart buys. They had a pretty good success rate in terms of big buys. There two most expensive players were Md. Kaif, and Yusuf Pathan.

So that is a pretty good record as Yusuf Pathan emerged as one of the rising stars of Indian cricket.

Speaking of the Royals, the name that comes to everybody’s mind is that of the captain, Shane Warne. His charisma made him stand apart from the team and made him earn respect from his teammates. His leadership, in which he made every ‘unexpensive’ player of his team feel like a million dollars.

Once, he introduced Ravindra Jadeja to Harsha Bhogle referring him as India’s next rockstar.

This year the team has got a glamorous boost, with Shilpa Shetty coming on board after she bought a 12% stake in the franchisee. The Royals have maintained there style of picking up players who are less known fro there star status than there performance. They have bought Tyron Henderson for $ 650,000, which is a good buy considering that he has made loads of runs in the English Twenty20 league and with no international commitments will be available for all matches.

Another team which played safe all along, including the second auction, was the Delhi Daredevils. The teams were already been built, the only question was of adding and subtracting players. And the Daredevils came out with a plan. They ended up buying David Warner, an upcoming star for the Australians, Paul Collingwood and Owias Shah.

The Delhi team probably has the best opening partnership in the league. According to Harsha ‘Last year, if you had to beat the Daredevils, you had to get the top three out quickly. This year it will be interesting to see how Mcgrath bowls considering that he has rusted for another year.

When asked Amrit Mathur, CEO of Delhi Daredevils, he stressed on the fact that you need good players around for all 14 matches. ‘Balance Sheet is of importance to us’ said Mathur.
Source – espnstar.com

The duration of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season two could just be longer than the usual as their are plans to have two additional breaks and extend the duration of the match by 10 minutes. Under the current ICC rules, the T20 game is a three-hour affair with only one interval of 15 minutes between the two innings.

Ten minutes will not have much of an issue for an average spectator, but for Multi Screen Media (MSM) India, the broadcaster of the event, it means megabucks. The five-minute breaks to be squeezed in between each innings is aimed to rake in more advertising slots, which in turn will net more money.

The commercial move, which could fetch the broadcaster nearly $ 5 million, will be given a completely cricketing makeover by converting it into a rule wherein captains could use that time to regroup and redraw strategies.

The plan is a part of the BCCI-MSM India deal that was renegotiated recently. The fact that the 10 minute break per match will be used primarily for commercial purposes has also been inked in the deal.

Media reports suggest that as against the estimated commercial air-time of 2000 seconds per match last season, this time MSM India would get 2600 seconds. This is one major reason why there was a strong emphasis on targeting the prime time television audience in India while the schedule was being finalized in South Africa.

For the moment, the answers will have to wait because the official word isn’t out as yet. Rohit Gupta, president, network and sales, MSM India, says, “I haven’t heard of any such development.”

Recently, MSM India renegotiated the broadcast rights with BCCI last week for a whopping $ 1.6 billion for nine years as compared to the amount of $ 918 million paid by World Sports Group (WSG) for 10 years.

A $ 5 million venture ? Going by the current market rates, a 10 second ad slot is likely to fetch the broadcaster close to Rs 4 lakh. Thus, a 10 minute break will net Rs 24 lakh. Multiply it by 59, the number of matches that will be played in IPL Season 2, and we get a whopping Rs 23.6 crore or $ 5 million.
Source – televisionpoint.com