West Indies captain Chris Gayle will head up the Caribbean swashbucklers at the second Indian Premier League tournament.

Gayle will hope to make up for his injury-hit season last year when he turns out for the Kolkata Knight Riders in South Africa, the venue for the competition after security threats saw it moved from India.

The 29-year-old left-hander, who enjoys an impressive average batting average of 40 plus in both Tests and one-day internationals, can be a destructive force when he gets going.

He formerly held the record for the highest innings in a Twenty20, having scored 117 against South Africa in the World Twenty20 Championship, and was the only batsman to have hit a century in the format.

New Zealander Brendon McCullum eventually broke that record when he notched up an incredible 158 not out for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the first game of the inaugural IPL in 2008.

At the IPL player auction for the eight-team league, which comprises 59 Twenty20 games over five weeks, fast bowlers Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor – who are both useful with the bat, were both snapped up for 150,000 dollars by Deccan Chargers and Kings XI Punjab respectively.

The Chargers also signed Dwayne Smith for 100,000 dollars, while rookie Barbadian pacer Kemar Roach and Kieron Pollard both remained unsold at the auction.

Dwayne Bravo will hope to star for the Mumbai Indians in his second season after West Indies selectors chose to ignore him for the two-Test series against England, which will see his IPL countrymen have to leave South Africa on May 1.
Source – geosuper.tv

THE much-hyped Kolkata Knight Riders didn’t live up to expectations in last year’s Indian Premier League and ended up winning just six of their 14 games.

Knight Riders coach Australian John Buchanan has chosen to rotate the captaincy, a move that has stirred much controversy.

But with born leaders like Indian Sourav Ganguly, West Indies captain Chris Gayle and Kiwi wicketkeeper Brendan McCullum in the side, there will be no shortage of experience for the coach to call on.

The Kolkata side, owned by Bollywood star Sharukh Khan, also features the likes of Australian batsmen Brad Hodge and David Hussey.

The bowling attack includes Sri Lankan spin wizard Ajantha Mendis and Indian quicks Ishant Sharma and Ajit Agarkar — the latter has 288 ODI scalps to his name.

Ganguly scored 349 runs in 13 innings in the inaugural tournament at an average of 29. His highest score was 91.

Pakistani bowler Umar Gul picked up the most wickets for the side in 2008 — 12 in six games — but will not play in the 2009 edition of the IPL.

South African swing bowler Charl Langeveldt has been mandated to take wickets — an area in which the team fell short last year.

The team is owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.
Source – thetimes.co.za

Harbhajan Singh has always wanted to slam the bowlers. He has long nurtured a dream of scoring a breezy Test century, a sensational stroke-filled show in a limited-over match, or best, swing a match with his bat in Twenty20 cricket.

He is a bowler who would “love to be acknowledged as a batsman” worthy of making priceless runs when they matter. Most of his batting aspirations are visible at the ‘nets.’

So, when he promises some explosive stuff at the forthcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) in South Africa, Harbhajan needs to be taken ‘seriously.’

He rightly opined on Wednesday that every player assumes a level of “explosive batting” in Twenty20 but added that “I am no less” even as he promised some exciting fare. His aggregate thus far from four T20 international innings is 30 runs.

That he has no regard for batsmen is well known. The sight of a batsman stirs him into raising his game and Harbhajan, with 330 Test wickets to his credit, said that he would like to play the role of a match-winner with greater “consistency” now.

“I want to win more and more matches and I am all charged up for the IPL,” he said.

He had missed the inaugural edition of the IPL following the slapping incident with S. Sreesanth.

“I don’t like to be reminded of that incident time and again. It is a closed chapter. There is no animosity between us,” said Harbhajan, who signed a deal for licensing his brand name at a function, here on Wednesday.

Licence India would now ‘sell’ Harbhajan as a brand ambassador for setting up restaurants, sportswear and cricket academies.

The 29-year-old off-spinner typically dismissed the multiple-captain theory of John Buchanan.

True, the noted Australian coach’s theory was yet to be implemented, but it had not stopped reactions from all possible quarters.

“I don’t care if they employ 11 captains. I wish them luck,” said Harbhajan, known to mock at anything that emanates from an Australian.

On not being able to receive the Padma Shri award at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Tuesday, Harbhajan pleaded, “I had some important family commitments.”
Source – hindu.com

When veteran Australian coach John Buchanan recently floated the idea of having multiple captains in Twenty20, it became a burning issue, literally.

His effigies were burnt in Kolkata by fans of former India captain Sourav Ganguly who believed the concept was meant to dilute the powers of their popular ‘Prince of Kolkata’.

The 56-year-old Buchanan, who had a successful eight-year stint as Australia’s coach, said the new concept would be an advantage in the fast-moving shortest version of the game.

“There will always be a nominated captain, who goes for the toss. He could look after the bowling, make the changes, take care of the strategy aspect,” he told the Kolkata-based Telegraph newspaper.

“We could also have a fielding captain, who sets the field keeping in mind the planning done for that particular match. The fielding captain complements the nominated/bowling captain.

“Both will be supported by the coach, who’ll be the captain off the field. When the team is batting, the coach will be the captain.”

Buchanan, cricket manager of the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, sparked a worldwide debate with his concept and led to the pro-Ganguly protests.

The controversy did not die down and it eventually required Knight Riders owner, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, to broker a truce.

“I am not doing it for the sake of grabbing headlines,” said Buchanan. “I am doing it for reasons that’ll benefit the game.

“Having one captain to run the show in the traditional form is okay. In Twenty20, though, I don’t believe we need a single captain to be responsible for all the decisions.”

Ganguly said they would “wait and see” how the idea works when the IPL opens on Saturday.

“It’s completely new. It has never happened in sports,” he said. “There are no gaurantees.”

Teams like Australia and India have had different Test and one-day captains, but not more than one skipper in a match in any form of the game.

South African coach Mickey Arthur promptly shot down the idea.

“It has to be one leader always,” he said. “I favour the one-captain situation because everybody in the team is clear about who is in charge at all times.

“If you have more than one guy as leader, you don’t know whom to turn to. I really don’t know what he (Buchanan) is aiming at.”

Australian captain Ricky Ponting saw no problems with the concept.

“I know Tassie (Tasmania) actually experimented with that a few years ago. One was doing the field placings and one was doing the bowling changes,” said Ponting.

“So it just sort of lightened the load up on the actual captain and gave him a bit more opportunity to think about different things. I don’t see there’s a lot of problems with it.”

Sri Lanka’s new captain Kumar Sangakkara felt the idea should be given a fair trial.

“If it’s a way to go forward and it shows results, why not?” he asked.

“Hopefully, it’s not a marketing gimmick. Something to create more interest towards that one franchise and to get the public to say ‘Well, we’ll follow the Knight Riders from here on.”
Source – google.com

International Cricket Council lacks ‘common sense’, otherwise it would have created a separate window for the Indian Premier League, said spin legend Shane Warne.

A vociferous advocate of a separate window for the Twenty20 event, Warne said no international matches should have been scheduled for the month of April to allow all players compete in the cash-rich league.

“If the ICC had any common sense, they would create a window for the IPL,” Warne, who led the Rajasthan Royals to a fairytale victory in the inaugural edition of the league was quoted as saying by The Star.
Source – cricketnext.in.com