ICL vs IPL: How about a match?

New Delhi/ Mumbai: They are sworn enemies in Indian cricket. The ICL has been branded as a rebel league, and the BCCI promoted IPL is currently the hottest property in world cricket. But beyond the shrill rhetoric can there be a common meeting ground? CNN-IBN wonders about that possibility.

Even while playing a round of recreational golf, Dean Jones never gave an opponent an inch. So as a member of the ICL executive board, he has the same approach towards the other T20 league that's about to kick off. Here's his message to the IPL:
"Bring it on. If the IPL think they are good enough and they have got the best Twenty20 crop in the world, we do. Bring it on," Jones says.

Here is the idea some are dreaming up. Why don't the leagues stop taking each other on in the media or in legal battles, and instead, how about this: a three-match series between the champions of the ICL versus the champions of the IPL?
"We are running our game, they are running their game. We see no competition. It's just another tournament," says Lalit Modi, Chairman of the IPL.

IPL bosses may laugh it off, but with the so-called rebels having already organised two succesful tournaments they can say what you are about to hear next.
"ICL is already existing, so let IPL play a couple of tournaments. Once they get established, the time will come when people will start saying, 'let's have a match between the two teams,'" says the ICL Chairman Kapil Dev.

It may be the ultimate cricketing fantasy and may not come true anytime soon. But stranger things have happened in this game before.

IPL: Shane Warne Retires From First-Class Cricket

Too many business interests, too much time spent away from home and IPL. All these have prompted Shane Warne to retire from even first class cricket. He cut his final ties with Hampshire whose team he transformed over the 8 years he was with them. From being a small provincial club Hampshire has become a leading side in English County Cricket and they are deeply debted to Shane Warne for this transformation and sad to see him go.
HE will now concentrate only IPL - where he is playing the role of captain and coach for the Rajasthan Royals team.

IPL: Entertainment Tax Has To Be Borne By Franchise Owners

The BCCI has asked all the franchisees to apply for entertainment tax exemption for the IPL tournament matches. But if the goverment rejects this application then the franchise owners have to be prepared to pay what ever tax the goverment imposes. This was made clear by the BCCI to the franchisees.

IPL: To Be Free Of Sledging

All captains have to take a pledge and avoid all forms of sledging. The BCCI is determined to make IPL a pleasant and controversy free tournament to avoid the kind of troubles that cropped up during the India-Australia series.
The captains have to take the pledge of “Spirit of Cricket” - to play by the spirit of the game before the tournament gets started on Apr 18th.

Delhi Dare Devils: IPL Delhi Recruit Md. Asif In Doubt

Md. Asif the Pakistan speedster is in doubt for the inagural IPL tournament. He is facing chronic elbow problems and has been sidelined due to injuries for the past 6 months. In October 2007 he broke down against South Africa and has since not played much competitive cricket.
2006 was his most impressive year with several successes. But, he missed several tours due to his injury problems. The PCB has not cleared Asif for the Bangladesh tour that is scheduled just before the IPL.

Asif has been snapped up by Delhi IPL Team for $650,000 but his injury problems might derail his chances of participating in the tournament and he is trying all out to get back in shape.

IPL Delhi: Md. Asif and Glenn Mcgrath

Fan and idol sharing the same dressing room. Md. Asif, the Pakistani Speedster is an ardent fan of Glenn Mcgrath and the thought of sharing the same dressing room as part of the Delhi Dare Devils is as source of joy to this talented bowler. He wishes to learn as much as possible from Glenn and become a better bowler.

He had met Glenn only once previously and thought of meeting his idol and staying in close quarters with him over the course of whole month excites him no end.

He said that IPL is going to be big success despite the critics and controversy. He said with all the big names of cricket in one place and playing with each other and against each other - it will only improve the communications and relations between the players.

IPL: Black Caps Given May 1 deadline

Black caps in the IPL - Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, Ross Talyor and Kyle Mills have been asked to report for national duty by May 1. This decision was arrived at after talks between the IPL contracted players, coach, all the members of the New Zealand team and even the English cricketing authorities.
It was decided that a 2 week period of acclimatization for sufficient for these professional cricketers.
Change is in the air and IPL is the face of that change. We can’t afford to ignore the changes sweeping the world of cricket so we need to keep that in mind while planning out our cricketing agenda was the general gist of the New Zealand Cricket’s CEO’s statement.

IPL: ITC Welcome Group hotels To Be Official Hotels

IPL has announced the ITC Welcome Group hotels will be the official hotels for the 44-day tournament across the 8 cities for the first 3 years.
UB and IPL will share the revenues 50:50 for the opening match of the IPL tournament at Bangalore.
Ravi Shastri and Gavaskar will be the star commentators for the IPL tournament.
Kingfisher Airlines will be the official Airlines for the next 3 years.

IPL and BCCI To Get Websites

The Indian Premier League will formally launch its website next month. BCCI will also get its much awaited portal site by July. BCCI is only of the major test playing countries that does not have a web presence.

IPL will launch its website on April 7 and this will run by North America-based company which will also develop the portal for the BCCI. No details about the name of the company etc. have been revealed. The deal was worth $50 million dollars according to insiders.

IPL, SRK Sucking Out TV Advertising Revenue

The inaugural IPL event and SRK latest quiz show on Star Plus are both slated to be mega events with mega promotions. All the companies that usually piggy back on cricket and SRK for their advertising have set a major part of their advertising revenues for these two.
The present South Africa-India series that is being promoted by Neo Sports has suffered as a result. Though Neo Sports has made a reasonable amount of revenue it is no comparison to amounts that being bandied about for the other two events.

Still, Neo sports is quite upbeat and hopes that as the series progresses and things hot up more advertisers will jump on the bandwagon that is cricket in India.

Kolkata Knight Riders Franchise Owner Taken To Court

Red Chillies Enterntainment the owner of the IPL Kolkata Team - Kolkata Knight Riders has been dragged to court by the Bengal Cricket Lovers Forum. The forum has been formed recently and draws it support from the 31000 strong Cricket Association of Bengal members.
The Bengal Cricket Lovers Forum has 6000 members and its lawyers say that as life, annual and associate members of the CAB they are entitled to watch all matches conducted at the Eden Gardens for free. This rule does not apply to charity matches.

Apart from Red Chillies, CAB, its President Prasun Mukherjee and BCCI have been made parties in the case filed by the forum. The case will be heard in lower court soon.

IPL Player Auction Has Its Critics

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu - Karunanidhi, said he hoped that player’s auction doesn’t happen a second time. Rahul Dravid said he had reservations about the player’s auction.
The former captain of Pakistan cricket team- Inzamam-ul-Haq joined the debate today. He was critical of auction and the method of picking players for the different teams.
Marvan Attapattu , former Sri Lankan skipper said he would have been happy if the bidding and auction had been done in a more dignified way. Incidentally, Attapattu and Inzaman are both playing for the rival ICL league of Zee.

IPL auctions was exciting and fun for some but for some of the players themselves it was demeaning, embarassing and insulting as several of really good cricketers went for peanuts while the brazenly over the top guys got picked for more money than they deserved.

IPL Player Of The Tournament Will Get A Prize Of $24,850

IPL Player Of The Tournament Will Get A Prize Of $24,850. The three former Indian captains Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri will choose the ‘Player of the DLF IPL Twenty20 championship’ and present a trophy and cash prize of Rs. 10 lakhs ($24,850) to the winner.

Sunil Gavaskar said the IPL would be hugely beneficial for the entire cricketing fraternity in the long run. “Choosing a Man of the Match or a Man of the Series is always a difficult job, but hopefully with the years of experience between Tiger, Ravi and myself, I am sure that our choice for the Man of the Series will not disappoint the lovers of the game.”

DLFIPL: Cricket Tours In Trouble

The West Indies-Australia series, the Sri Lanka-Pakistan series and the abandoned Australia-Pakistan, the England-New Zealand series have a common problem. They are all scheduled during the inagural IPL Tournament and players who have contracted to play in opening series want to play in the lucrative IPL rather than against the countries they are scheduled to play for the duration of the tournament.
Australia, one of the countries that pays it cricketers well and has long term contracts with them has insisted that its players will play only for two weeks in the IPL.
West Indies, one of the poorer boards faces open revolt. Most of its players want to play in the IPL and not against Australia. Dyson the chief of West Indies cricket has asked IPL and the Indian board to honor their committment to international cricket and also their earlier promise that playing for country comes first.
Most of the New Zealand squad will be joining the England tour only after the most of the IPL season is finished. For the first time only second string players have journeyed to England for the tour opening matches.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka tour is also under pressure. Sri Lanka has requested Pakistan to re-schedule their matches so its players can take part in the IPL tournament.
So, inspite of the best intentions on the part of Lalit Modi, saying country comes first, players need to play for pride and all that talk, finally the financial pull seems to making the decisions right now.

DLF-IPL: Aussies Available Only For Two Weeks

Most of the Aussies will be playing in the inaugural DLFIPL tournament for a short stint of around 2 weeks. Immediately after that they need to be on their way to the West Indies. The Aussies are scheduled to play in West Indies and Cricket Australia has worked out a playing calendar for its players that allows them only a short stint at the IPL. It means that most of the players will not earn the huge amounts that they were contracted for in the 6 week tournament. They will paid on a pro rata basis and will earn based on the number of days played in the IPL tournament.

Kolkata Knight Riders - SRK Plans Mega Promotions

Rani and Bipasha the two Bong babes will be participating in the promotions of Kolkata knight Riders and music video.
Apart from that SRK will be the 12th man of the team.
And Every match will feature dance and entertainment shows by the King Khan and his co-stars like Kareena and others.
So, Eden gardens will be in for a treat of two kinds. Cricket and entertainment - bollywood istyle

IPL Mohali Expected To Announce Name Shortly

IPL Mohali the only team yet to formally launch its team, with a new name, logo and theme song etc is expected to make the announcement shortly.
All the other teams have already finalised all these details and made their announcement with much fanfare.
IPL Hyderabad has recently announced its name as Deccan Chargers with a raging bull as its logo.
IPL Mohali will be announcing their name shortly it is expected.

Kingfisher Airlines Will Be the Umpire Partner For IPL Series

Kingfisher Airlines has paid nearly $26 million to be the Umpire Partners for the IPL Series. They will be presenting the umpiring in completely new light while retaining the essence and basic dignity of the umpires and the important position they hold in cricket.
Kingfisher highlight the important role it was playing in supporting the cricket globally. Kingfisher has been sponsoring the West Indies team for a long time.

Deccan Chargers On a Rampage

The logo is a raging, charging bull.
The tag line is Unstoppables.
The team colors are Red and Gold. Red for aggression and gold for victory.
The Deccan Chargers take on the Kolkata Knight Riders on Apr 20 at Kolkata. Their first home match will be against the Delhi Daredevils on Apr 22.
Hyderabadis are awaiting an Unstoppable run for their team the Deccan Chargers.

Hyderabad Deccan Chargers Team Members

Deccan Chargers Team:
V.V.S. Laxman (captain),
Adam Gilchrist (vice-captain)
Andrew Symonds
Herschelle Gibbs
Shahid Afridi,
Chaminda Vaas
Scott Styris
Chamara Silva
Nuwan Zoysa
R.P. Singh
Rohit Sharma
N. Arjun Yadav
Dwaraka Ravi Teja
Pragyan Prayish Ojha
Doddapaneni Kalyankrishna
P. Vijay Kumar
Y. Venu Gopal Rao
Halhadhar Das
Sanjay Bangar and Sarvesh Kumar
will represent the Unstoppables - The Hyderabad Deccan Chargers

Hyderbad Deccan Chargers Launched

The Hyderabad Deccan Chargers Team was launched today amidst a lot of fan fare and excitement. VVS Laxman the captain of the team was at hand to deliver a stirring speech. We don’t need any movie stars to promote our cricket. The Hyderbad cricket team with some of the best talent on offer in the world of cricket today is in itself the best advertisement for cricket.
Robin Singh is the coach who was recently sacked as the Indian team fielding coach said he was thrilled to have so many match winners in the Deccan Chargers Team.
Adam Gilchrist sent in a video recording of his statement and said he was excited to be part of this professional team. Adam Gilchrist will be the vice-captain of the Hyderabad Deccan Chargers.

IPL Mohali: Neil Maxwell Named IPL Mohali’s CEO

Neil Maxwell, former Australian cricketer has been appointed the CEO of IPL Mohali team. He will be part of the core managment group and will be involved in the brand building exercise for IPL Mohali which is yet to be named.
Maxwell brings a wealth of experience to his post as he was involved in a number of administrative and marketing positions for various cricket clubs and states in Australia.
A lot is expected of of this association between Maxwell and Team Mohali

Bedi Makes A Dig At IPL

Former Indian cricket Bishen Singh Bedi taken a humourous dig at the IPL. He said players are going to do a jig from Apr 18. First it was the Pyjama Cricket from Kerry Packer and now it is some more tamasha from our own BCCI.
The result of all this will be that some deserving players will become millionaires and some non-deserving players also will become millionaires. He equated the recent IPL auction to a cattle fair.
He was critical of the bad behaviour from younger members of the Indian Team during the recent Australian Tour.

DLF-IPL: BCCI Axes Robin Singh

It’s sad that people who are responsible for turning round India’s fortunes after the World Cup debacle - Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad are set to be replaced. The arrival of new coach from South Africa Gary Kirsten and the fact that Robin had signed up with one of the IPL teams as coach lead to his being axed as the Indian Team fielding coach.
Venkatesh Prasad will stay on for the present

IPL Chennai: Chennai Super Kings Have Signed Up L.Balaji

Laxmipathy Balaji the speedster created a great impression when he played against the Pakistanis in Pakistan. The great Imran Khan himself wondered sometime back where is Balaji he asked. He played for a couple of series and has not heard off after that. Well, L.Balaji was sidelined after a injury and has been cooling his heels playing domestic tournaments. He is now fully recovered but has been out of the national side for nearly 3 years.
Balaji has been signed up as a surprise package by the India Cements group for their Chennai super kings franchise.

IPL Chennai: Chennai Super Kings Sign Vijay And Nayantara As Brand Ambassdors

Actors Vijay and Nayantara have signed up with the India Cements owned Chennai Super Kings to become brand ambassdors for the IPL Chennai Team. This was announced today.
Vijay and Nayantara will appear in all the hoardings and ads that will be promoting the Chennai Super Kings matches. Srikant is the other brand ambassdor for the team.
Chennai Super Kings have a roaring lion as their logo.
Their tag line being “Fearless entertainers who will play to win”

Royal Challengers Owner Throws A Party

Vijay Mallaya threw a party at the launch of his Royal Challengers Team. Apart from the host himself and his team members a number of socialites and who’s who in Bangalore turned up for the party.
A lot of the former cricketers and industrialists were seen mingling at the party.

Royal Challengers: Dravid To Shake a Leg!!

Rahul Dravid will exhibit his hitherto unknown dancing skills. Rahul, Zaheer Khan and Virat Kohli the captain of the under-19 world cup winning team will all be featured in the music video to be directed by Sanjay Gupta - producer/director of hindi movies.
Allan Amin will be the action director for the shoot. Allan shot to fame with his stunts sequences in Dhoom. Sanjay Gupta needs no introduction as he