New Delhi: The players have been bought, but the big question is who has got the right ones. Powered with the findings of an opinion poll on Cricketnext.com, here's the expert view on who have the best team to go all the way in the IPL.
After a day of hectic buying and selling, everyone is wondering who got the mix right? That may not be easy to answer but the experts reckon some have no chance at all after the players they picked up, like team Jaipur.
"Serendipity. Whatever that lands up on the auction day. We might have picked out a few players and targetted them, but during the course of the auction, if you have been a little off target, there is a possibility of going off balance," VB Chandrasekhar, former India cricketer and selector of the Chennai Super Kings, told CNN-IBN on Saturday's Cricket 360.
Just one per cent of Cricketnext users thought Jaipur would win the league. Bangalore faired a touch better with four per cent, and Mumbai was at nine per cent.
"When you have these iconic players with you, and you pay them loads of money, I think it will call for true professionalism in them, and you have got to make sure that they win," notes former India speedster Javagal Srinath.
But one team that gets the accolades from nearly everyone is Hyderabad, who have Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, VVS Laxman and Rohit Sharma among others to call on.
"They have got the best balance because they have got players who can win the game single-handedly," explains former India spinner Maninder Singh.
Cricketnext users tend to agree. Hyderabad, along with Chennai fetched the highest number of votes with 26 per cent.
And the mastermind behind Chennai's selection is in no doubt they have hit the nail on the head. "I would tend to think that it's all ours already," Chandrashekhar beams.
What of the dark horses? Shahrukh Khan's Kolkata and Priety Zinta's Mohali are pretty close; 17 per cent go for Kolkata while 13 per cent back Preity's Mohali. Delhi managed just two per cent.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Younus disappointed at bid price at IPL auction
Younus disappointed at bid price at IPL auctionPTIPrintSaveWrite to EditorMail
KARACHI, February 23: After Australian captain Ricky Ponting, Pakistan batsman Younus Khan is another player to express disappointment at not fetching a bigger bid price in the Indian Premier League players' auction. Younus, who is captaining the North-West Frontier Province in the ongoing Pentangular tournament, told reporters he was surprised at the low price tag he attracted from the city teams taking part in the IPL Twenty20 event. The Jaipur franchise signed on Younus for a bid price of $225,000, which is far less than the $675,000 obtained by Shahid Afridi, $650,000 by Mohammad Asif and $500,000 by Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik. "It is a bit worrying because I was expecting a more attractive price tag," Younus said. "It is less than my expectations and it is a little bit of worry for me but I am confident that it (money) will improve next time with better performance," he said. Ponting, who was signed on by the Kolkata team for $400,000, has also expressed disappointment at the price he fetched at the auction. However, Younus said he remained a strong believer that performance would eventually help in achieving the targets he has set. "I know one thing that if I perform better, I will be given a better offer and I am committed to achieving that goal in the IPL," he stated. The Pakistan Cricket Board Younus hopes that India will tour the country for a short One-day series with Australia likely to come only for a curtailed visit. Younus felt the series against the archrivals will prepare Pakistan to take on the world champions.
KARACHI, February 23: After Australian captain Ricky Ponting, Pakistan batsman Younus Khan is another player to express disappointment at not fetching a bigger bid price in the Indian Premier League players' auction. Younus, who is captaining the North-West Frontier Province in the ongoing Pentangular tournament, told reporters he was surprised at the low price tag he attracted from the city teams taking part in the IPL Twenty20 event. The Jaipur franchise signed on Younus for a bid price of $225,000, which is far less than the $675,000 obtained by Shahid Afridi, $650,000 by Mohammad Asif and $500,000 by Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik. "It is a bit worrying because I was expecting a more attractive price tag," Younus said. "It is less than my expectations and it is a little bit of worry for me but I am confident that it (money) will improve next time with better performance," he said. Ponting, who was signed on by the Kolkata team for $400,000, has also expressed disappointment at the price he fetched at the auction. However, Younus said he remained a strong believer that performance would eventually help in achieving the targets he has set. "I know one thing that if I perform better, I will be given a better offer and I am committed to achieving that goal in the IPL," he stated. The Pakistan Cricket Board Younus hopes that India will tour the country for a short One-day series with Australia likely to come only for a curtailed visit. Younus felt the series against the archrivals will prepare Pakistan to take on the world champions.
Local stars named in IPL squad
Local stars named in IPL squad
Principal Correspondent
HYDERABAD: Andhra’s finds of last season, fast bowlers Doddapaneni Kalyankrishna and P. Vijay Kumar, are two of the eight first-class cricketers who will play for Hyderabad in the forthcoming Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket championship, according to manager Vijay Mohan Raj.
Vijay said that the six other cricketers are N. Arjun Yadav, D.B. Ravi Teja, N. Sarvesh Kumar and Pragyan Ojha (all from Hyderabad), India discard Y. Venugopala Rao (Andhra) and Orissa wicketkeeper Halhadar Das.
“With the addition of the first-class players, we have fulfilled the franchisee’s obligation to include under-22 players and players from the ‘catchment area’ (which included Hyderabad, Andhra and Orissa) in the Twenty20 squad,” Vijay Mohan Raj explained.
Principal Correspondent
HYDERABAD: Andhra’s finds of last season, fast bowlers Doddapaneni Kalyankrishna and P. Vijay Kumar, are two of the eight first-class cricketers who will play for Hyderabad in the forthcoming Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket championship, according to manager Vijay Mohan Raj.
Vijay said that the six other cricketers are N. Arjun Yadav, D.B. Ravi Teja, N. Sarvesh Kumar and Pragyan Ojha (all from Hyderabad), India discard Y. Venugopala Rao (Andhra) and Orissa wicketkeeper Halhadar Das.
“With the addition of the first-class players, we have fulfilled the franchisee’s obligation to include under-22 players and players from the ‘catchment area’ (which included Hyderabad, Andhra and Orissa) in the Twenty20 squad,” Vijay Mohan Raj explained.
Icons proved a handicap, complain IPL franchisees
DELHI, February 21: They were supposed to be the jewels in the crown. But if the proceedings at Wednesday's mega auction in IPL are anything to go by, the five "icon" players may have become millstones around the necks of their franchisees. According to sources, all the franchisees of the teams that had been allocated an icon player - Mumbai (Sachin Tendulkar), Bangalore (Rahul Dravid), Kolkata (Sourav Ganguly), Delhi (Virender Sehwag) and Mohali (Yuvraj Singh) - protested during the auction that they had been handicapped in the bidding process. They pointed out, the stipulation that the icons have to be paid at least 15% more than any other team player unduly raised their costs in the bidding. In comparison, they argued, teams with no icons could afford to bid high for specific players, while they could not do so, since it would effectively mean paying even more for the icon player, leaving them with little for the rest of the squad. For instance, if Chennai had an icon player and had still chosen to buy Dhoni for Rs 6 crore, it would have had to spend 15% more, that is Rs 6.9 crore, on the icon player. Out of a maximum budget of $5 million, or about Rs 20 crore, it would've ended up paying Rs 12.9 crore on just two players - that's almost two-thirds of the total available money. Not surprisingly, the two highest bids - for Dhoni and Andrew Symonds from Hyderabad - came from teams that don't have an icon. The franchisees expressed the view that IPL should have allotted an icon to each team to level the field. Alternatively, they suggested, the icons could have been kept out of the $5 million cap imposed on franchisees for buying players. A third option was that the non-icon teams like Jaipur and Hyderabad should've paid their captain 15% more than the most expensive player. IPL officials at the bidding - Lalit Modi, I S Bindra and Rajeev Shukla - said the rules were known to all franchisees and it was too late in the day to change the goalposts
Hyderabad aiming to build a solid fan base for IPL
New Delhi, Feb 22 (IANS) After spending a staggering $112 million in buying the franchise and players for the Indian Premier League (IPL), Hyderabad team owners Deccan Chronicle are now out to build a solid fan base for their powerful team. Deccan Chronicle, the leading newspaper from Hyderabad, has some of the big names in world cricket like Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist and local hero V.V. S. Laxman. They won Symonds for a whopping $1.35 million, the highest amount paid for an overseas player.
So with the great names in business, they are hoping that they would not only recover the millions spent, but also make handsome profit. It is only a matter of time.
Team spokesperson J. Krishnan told IANS that Deccan Chronicle would recover the money from the central telecast rights fee and from local franchise revenue.
“The central revenue will be from the IPL board, which will distribute the TV rights revenue. The local or the franchise revenue will come from gate money and in-stadia advertisements. We will get a big chunk of in-stadia ads and the rest of the amount would be shared by the IPL and the state association.”
Krishanan said all investments were made keeping long-term strategy in mind. “Now the aim is to build a broad fan base for the team. The big names in the team will help us do that.”
Happy with the players they bought at Wednesday’s auction in Mumbai?
“Absolutely, the $5.8 million amount spent in buying 11 players was made in the right direction and it was the best we could have.”
Deccan Chronicle was the second highest bidder at the auction after India Cements which spent $5.9 million in buying players for their Chennai Super Kings team.
“If you look at the players we bought, I think we have one of the best balanced teams. All the players have proven record and I think Hyderabad will be a good competitive team,” said Krishnan.
Asked if buying controversial all-rounder Symonds was a planned move, he said: “We were aware of the fact that Australians won’t be available for the first year owing to their international commitments. So we bought him only keeping the long-term interests of the team in mind because players are contracted for three years. Now his presence will certainly make a difference to the team. He is a very popular player.”
Krishnan also said despite Laxman’s exclusion from the national one-day and Twenty20 side, he will add to the weight of the team as captain. Laxman also showed his generosity by declining to be an iconic player and get 15 percent more than the highest paid player in the team. It also helped the franchise as it could shell out more money to raise a good team.
Besides 11 players bought during auction, the Hyderabad team will look to promote local talent in the catchments area extending to even Orissa.
“We feel IPL is all about promoting local talent and we will do it and nurture it. Local Ranji Trophy players and under-22 players will get a chance and they will be paid according to the IPL norms,” Krishnan said.
According to IPL rules, a Ranji Trophy player should be paid $50,000 while an under-22 cricketer $20,000.
Krishnan also disclosed that India’s fielding coach Robin Singh will be the coach of the team but declined to names of physio and fitness trainer. “We are in the final stage of appointing Robin. About physios and fitness trainer, we have quiet a few names,” he said.
So with the great names in business, they are hoping that they would not only recover the millions spent, but also make handsome profit. It is only a matter of time.
Team spokesperson J. Krishnan told IANS that Deccan Chronicle would recover the money from the central telecast rights fee and from local franchise revenue.
“The central revenue will be from the IPL board, which will distribute the TV rights revenue. The local or the franchise revenue will come from gate money and in-stadia advertisements. We will get a big chunk of in-stadia ads and the rest of the amount would be shared by the IPL and the state association.”
Krishanan said all investments were made keeping long-term strategy in mind. “Now the aim is to build a broad fan base for the team. The big names in the team will help us do that.”
Happy with the players they bought at Wednesday’s auction in Mumbai?
“Absolutely, the $5.8 million amount spent in buying 11 players was made in the right direction and it was the best we could have.”
Deccan Chronicle was the second highest bidder at the auction after India Cements which spent $5.9 million in buying players for their Chennai Super Kings team.
“If you look at the players we bought, I think we have one of the best balanced teams. All the players have proven record and I think Hyderabad will be a good competitive team,” said Krishnan.
Asked if buying controversial all-rounder Symonds was a planned move, he said: “We were aware of the fact that Australians won’t be available for the first year owing to their international commitments. So we bought him only keeping the long-term interests of the team in mind because players are contracted for three years. Now his presence will certainly make a difference to the team. He is a very popular player.”
Krishnan also said despite Laxman’s exclusion from the national one-day and Twenty20 side, he will add to the weight of the team as captain. Laxman also showed his generosity by declining to be an iconic player and get 15 percent more than the highest paid player in the team. It also helped the franchise as it could shell out more money to raise a good team.
Besides 11 players bought during auction, the Hyderabad team will look to promote local talent in the catchments area extending to even Orissa.
“We feel IPL is all about promoting local talent and we will do it and nurture it. Local Ranji Trophy players and under-22 players will get a chance and they will be paid according to the IPL norms,” Krishnan said.
According to IPL rules, a Ranji Trophy player should be paid $50,000 while an under-22 cricketer $20,000.
Krishnan also disclosed that India’s fielding coach Robin Singh will be the coach of the team but declined to names of physio and fitness trainer. “We are in the final stage of appointing Robin. About physios and fitness trainer, we have quiet a few names,” he said.
Why VVS Laxman gave up a motza
Whispers and glances were thrown around the air-conditioned conference room in Mumbai's Hilton Towers, then silence descended.
"Next up is Andrew Symonds," said auctioneer Richard Madley, "with a base price of $US250,000."
Within moments, that base price had tripled and franchises couldn't wait for rivals to finish raising their hands before putting in higher bids.
Madley was working overtime: "$1 million, do I have $1.25? $1.25 here, do I have $1.3 million? Yes, $1.3 million [$A1.47m]."
Hyderabad's offer was simply too much. Some franchises weren't prepared to spend that much on one player; others were not prepared to see how far Hyderabad would go to get Symonds.
"Sold to Hyderabad for $1.3 million." Madley's hammer sounded the dawn of a new era for Australia's professional cricketers.
And Symonds - who signed his first professional contract wearing footy shorts, thongs and a cowboy hat - is now Twenty20 royalty and the richest non-Indian in this format of the game.
But in the ensuing days of head-shaking and figure-quoting, what few have realised is that Symonds's enormous pay-day was largely made possible by one man: VVS Laxman.
The Indian Test batsman, who will captain Symonds, gave up his "icon" status so Hyderabad could spend more money on talent. Under the stipulations, icon players (hometown heroes) were to receive 15 per cent more than their highest-earning teammates, a deal capitalised on by Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh to earn million-dollar contracts.
But Laxman declined and he received only $US375,000, a figure which allowed Hyderabad to spend big on Adam Gilchrist, RP Singh, Rohit Sharma and Shahid Afridi. If Hyderabad had to pay Laxman 15 per cent more than Symonds and remain under the $US5 million cap, they would not have been able to sign two of the other players. Symonds and Gilchrist in particular were chosen because Hyderabad felt its young squad members would benefit from exposure to the game's champions.
Now Symonds will make most of his money in a country where some middle-class fans are openly racist towards him, but where some of India's richest men want to make him a sporting god.
N. Krishnan is chief financial officer of the Deccan Chronicle, the newspaper company which purchased Hyderabad for $116.7 million.
The decision to make Symonds the second-highest paid IPL player was based on on-field strength, said Krishnan, and he is certain Indians are ready to embrace the Australian despite his racism row with Harbhajan Singh during the Sydney Test.
"We believe that things can happen on the field in the heat of cricket, and that it is now forgotten," Krishnan said. "I don't think any of the players carry it with them. We didn't really look at it like that. I am sure he will learn from it. Bygones are bygones.
"This is a long-term commitment. Once the cricket succeeds everything else will follow; the branding, everything will come. If my team is losing, marketing will be difficult."
But marketing is part and parcel of the deal. Players will be expected to feature heavily in advertising campaigns and Symonds could soon be asked to write a column for the Deccan Chronicle - "anything is possible", Krishnan said.
The anomaly of pricing put on players - with fringe players such as Cameron White and David Hussey earning more than Ricky Ponting - should have a flow-on effect in Australia.
Todd Deacon, general manager of the Sweeney Sports marketing firm, said television ratings for the IPL in Australia would determine whether local companies follow India's lead.
"There is still the issue of not necessarily representing your country - so you might be big in India but not the elite of the elite in Australian cricket, and that would still have an impact," he said.
"We believe that things can happen on the field in the heat of cricket, and that it is now forgotten," Krishnan said. "I don't think any of the players carry it with them. We didn't really look at it like that. I am sure he will learn from it. Bygones are bygones.
"This is a long-term commitment. Once the cricket succeeds everything else will follow; the branding, everything will come. If my team is losing, marketing will be difficult."
But marketing is part and parcel of the deal. Players will be expected to feature heavily in advertising campaigns and Symonds could soon be asked to write a column for the Deccan Chronicle - "anything is possible", Krishnan said.
The anomaly of pricing put on players - with fringe players such as Cameron White and David Hussey earning more than Ricky Ponting - should have a flow-on effect in Australia.
Todd Deacon, general manager of the Sweeney Sports marketing firm, said television ratings for the IPL in Australia would determine whether local companies follow India's lead.
"There is still the issue of not necessarily representing your country - so you might be big in India but not the elite of the elite in Australian cricket, and that would still have an impact," he said.
Vidarbha bookies gear up for IPL
NAGPUR: It’s not just Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta who are looking to make money out of the glitzy DLF Indian Premier League. Even the bookies of Vidarbha are hoping to cash in on the inaugural event, which brings together cricketers from around the world in a motley cocktail. The title-sponsorship went for Rs 200 crore for five years. But local bookies are expecting business of at least worth Rs 500 crore in the initial stages of the 44-day event. The betting will only increase towards the later stages of the league and the final figure can’t even be guesstimated. “This amount is just for the Vidarbha region,’’ said a bookie. “In metros like Mumbai and Delhi, the amount could almost be four to five times more. For big clashes, we expect the volume to go up to Rs 100 cr per match.’’ The IPL has got the bookies very excited. “We did not do much business neither during the India-Australia Test series nor in the ongoing Triangular series,’’ said the bookie. “But we very hopeful of the IPL. The amount of money that’s been spent on players have seen many bettors coming to us with inquiries on the event. Even last year’s World Cup and World T20 did not generate so much interest.’’ Local bookies had an informal discussion following Wednesday’s auction in Mumbai. “We will decide on the favourites and the odds to be offered on the teams within a few days,’’ said the bookie. An insider claimed that the ‘cricket satta’ centres in Vidarbha would soon be activated to ensure that each of the nodules attract maximum bettors. The bookies are expected to exercise caution in the city and may shift to the rural areas to escape detection by the city police. During the Caribbean World Cup and the Twenty20 World Cup held in South Africa, the city-based bookies had a tough time evading the police. Now the bookies are expected to use laptops, mobile phone lines and fast-moving vehicles to avoid being caught by the cops.
Mumbai to host ten IPL ties
Mumbai frachise winners Reliance India Ltd of Mukesh Ambani, will host ten matches, including the two semi finals and final, in the multi-million dollar Indian Premier League set to kick off at Bangalore on April 18.
Reliance Ltd. Has earned the right to host the final and the two semi finals by virtue of having bid the highest (USD 111.9) during the franchise auction which netted the Cricket Board USD 723.6 million, according to IPL sources.
"The bid by Vijay Mallya's UB Group of USD 111.6 m for the Bangalore franchise was the second-best and that's why he has been allotted the League opener on April 18," they said.
With each franchise team playing all other teams once on a home and away basis, the Mumbai franchise owners will be hosting seven ties in the preliminary stage of the tournament plus the three in the knock-out phase, making it ten in all.
IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi today said the Mumbai franchise owners have been given the option of hosting matches at the Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium and the D Y Patil Stadium, in Navi Mumbai.
"I guess they will choose CCI," he said when asked which of the two venues would be preferred for the June 1 final and the two semi finals, slated for May 30 and 31.
The other seven franchise owners - Bangalore (United Breweries), Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle Group), Chennai (India Cements), Delhi (GMR Group), Kolkata (Red Chillies Entertainment of Shah Rukh Khan and Group), Chandigarh (Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, R Burman and Group) and Jaipur (Emerging Media Group) would host seven matches each in the 44-day, 59-match League
Reliance Ltd. Has earned the right to host the final and the two semi finals by virtue of having bid the highest (USD 111.9) during the franchise auction which netted the Cricket Board USD 723.6 million, according to IPL sources.
"The bid by Vijay Mallya's UB Group of USD 111.6 m for the Bangalore franchise was the second-best and that's why he has been allotted the League opener on April 18," they said.
With each franchise team playing all other teams once on a home and away basis, the Mumbai franchise owners will be hosting seven ties in the preliminary stage of the tournament plus the three in the knock-out phase, making it ten in all.
IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi today said the Mumbai franchise owners have been given the option of hosting matches at the Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium and the D Y Patil Stadium, in Navi Mumbai.
"I guess they will choose CCI," he said when asked which of the two venues would be preferred for the June 1 final and the two semi finals, slated for May 30 and 31.
The other seven franchise owners - Bangalore (United Breweries), Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle Group), Chennai (India Cements), Delhi (GMR Group), Kolkata (Red Chillies Entertainment of Shah Rukh Khan and Group), Chandigarh (Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, R Burman and Group) and Jaipur (Emerging Media Group) would host seven matches each in the 44-day, 59-match League
Purists fume as IPL shifts crickets powerbase to India, Twenty20
Purists fume as IPL shifts crickets powerbase to India, Twenty20
1 day ago
NEW DELHI - The massive spending on the new Indian Premier League shows the power base of the game has shifted very firmly to the subcontinent and the Twenty20 game, and the game's traditionalists are not happy.
Cricket's old guard attacked the new Indian Premier League on Friday, saying the tens of millions spent at a player auction on Wednesday - not to mention the US$1.7 billion on combined television rights and franchise ownership - had cheapened the sport.
The critics pounced two days after IPL franchise owners spent almost $42 million at the auction, staffing their teams with the cream of world cricket's talent ahead of the April 18 launch.
While the majority of fans in India were eagerly awaiting the new league, and cherishing their place as the new centre of the sport, not all were happy.
"Cricket is not going to change, but the unfortunate side is that cricketers have become commodities ... just commodities," said former India Test player Erapalli Prasanna.
"If I look at you like some sort of vegetable, is it good for you?" Prasanna was quoted as saying at a panel discussion in Mumbai by Press Trust of India.
"You should be looked at for your quality, as a cricketer ... a talented cricketer."
The Indian media dubbed the IPL as a "million-dollar baby", but historian and cricket author Ramchandra Guha was not convinced about the merits of a city-focused league or the dominance of Twenty20 over Test cricket and 50-over game.
"How can you generate city loyalty in a sport so focused on national identity," Guha said in a debate on independent New Delhi Television.
Guha said he was not tempted to watch the IPL, and would instead prefer to spend his time viewing a domestic Ranji Trophy game.
"Test cricket is scotch, one-dayers are Indian whisky and Twenty20 is local hooch," said Guha.
The jibe may or may not have been aimed at billionaire Vijay Mallya, who runs one of the world's biggest spirits companies and is the owner of the Bangalore team.
Regardless, Mallya seemed pleased with the players he had bought Wednesday.
"I'm very happy with the team we've got, we have the best bowling attack in the IPL," Mallya told the independent Times Now network.
Mallya's team paid top prices for seasoned South Africans Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher to back up former India captain Rahul Dravid - who was given the "icon" status and not available for bidding.
Mallya said Dravid, who attended the auction, had influenced who the franchise targeted in bidding.
It secured current Test captain and ace leg-break bowler Anil Kumble before focusing on bolstering its pace attack by buying Indian left armer Zaheer Khan, Australia's Nathan Bracken and South Africa's Dale Steyn.
Young Australian big-hitting allrounder Cameron White was another player on its wishlist whom Bangalore claimed.
"We bid very aggressively for (Mahendra Singh) Dhoni, but could not go beyond a certain budget as we needed to keep money for the bowlers," said Mallya, adding that he had wanted Bangalore-based batsman Robin Uthappa "but he slipped through my fingers."
Dhoni was ultimately the highest-paid player at the auction, fetching $1.5 million from Chennai. Teams were permitted to spend a maximum of $5 million at the auction.
Uthappa, who features in the Indian one-day squad currently playing in a tri-series in Australia, was bought for $800,000 by Mumbai, which will be led by India batting great Sachin Tendulkar.
"We play cricket, do the job we love and the money that comes with it is a perk," PTI quoted Uthappa as saying in Sydney.
Uthappa will be joined at Mumbai by ace India spinner Harbhajan Singh, who fetched $850,000 in the auction after fierce bidding as the Mohali team too was eager on buying him.
"I'm happy to be playing under Tendulkar, who's my cricket idol," Singh was quoted as saying in Sydney by PTI. Singh said it would be unusual playing against his childhood friend and Punjab state teammate Yuvraj Singh, who will be leading Mohali.
Mohali's owners, industrialist Ness Wadia and film actress Priety Zinta, were delighted with their acquisitions, which included India all-rounder Irfan Pathan, Australia pace spearhead Brett Lee, Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, plus young Indian bowlers Shantakumaran Sreesanth and Piyush Chawla.
"The team comprises only winners and we'll play to win," said Wadia.
Jaipur's lineup will feature an interesting combination of South Africa skipper Graeme Smith and former Australian spin great Shane Warne, whose dislike for each other is well known and who have a history of fiery verbal exchanges.
The pair could boost light-spending Jaipur's prowess if they can establish a working relationship.
After the high-profile acquisitions, team franchises face the task of filling out their squads with players from their catchment areas and youngsters, whose presence in the squad is mandatory.
Team scouts have already started their search for promising youth, including reaching out to the India team currently participating in the U-19 World Cup in Malaysia.
Extracting brand value ahead of the IPL's launch will be difficult as the leading India players - the biggest draws at the auction - will be on national duty until three days ahead of the IPL's launch.
India's home Test series against South Africa will run from March 26-April 15, giving the Test stars just a few days to bond with new teammates and promote their teams.
1 day ago
NEW DELHI - The massive spending on the new Indian Premier League shows the power base of the game has shifted very firmly to the subcontinent and the Twenty20 game, and the game's traditionalists are not happy.
Cricket's old guard attacked the new Indian Premier League on Friday, saying the tens of millions spent at a player auction on Wednesday - not to mention the US$1.7 billion on combined television rights and franchise ownership - had cheapened the sport.
The critics pounced two days after IPL franchise owners spent almost $42 million at the auction, staffing their teams with the cream of world cricket's talent ahead of the April 18 launch.
While the majority of fans in India were eagerly awaiting the new league, and cherishing their place as the new centre of the sport, not all were happy.
"Cricket is not going to change, but the unfortunate side is that cricketers have become commodities ... just commodities," said former India Test player Erapalli Prasanna.
"If I look at you like some sort of vegetable, is it good for you?" Prasanna was quoted as saying at a panel discussion in Mumbai by Press Trust of India.
"You should be looked at for your quality, as a cricketer ... a talented cricketer."
The Indian media dubbed the IPL as a "million-dollar baby", but historian and cricket author Ramchandra Guha was not convinced about the merits of a city-focused league or the dominance of Twenty20 over Test cricket and 50-over game.
"How can you generate city loyalty in a sport so focused on national identity," Guha said in a debate on independent New Delhi Television.
Guha said he was not tempted to watch the IPL, and would instead prefer to spend his time viewing a domestic Ranji Trophy game.
"Test cricket is scotch, one-dayers are Indian whisky and Twenty20 is local hooch," said Guha.
The jibe may or may not have been aimed at billionaire Vijay Mallya, who runs one of the world's biggest spirits companies and is the owner of the Bangalore team.
Regardless, Mallya seemed pleased with the players he had bought Wednesday.
"I'm very happy with the team we've got, we have the best bowling attack in the IPL," Mallya told the independent Times Now network.
Mallya's team paid top prices for seasoned South Africans Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher to back up former India captain Rahul Dravid - who was given the "icon" status and not available for bidding.
Mallya said Dravid, who attended the auction, had influenced who the franchise targeted in bidding.
It secured current Test captain and ace leg-break bowler Anil Kumble before focusing on bolstering its pace attack by buying Indian left armer Zaheer Khan, Australia's Nathan Bracken and South Africa's Dale Steyn.
Young Australian big-hitting allrounder Cameron White was another player on its wishlist whom Bangalore claimed.
"We bid very aggressively for (Mahendra Singh) Dhoni, but could not go beyond a certain budget as we needed to keep money for the bowlers," said Mallya, adding that he had wanted Bangalore-based batsman Robin Uthappa "but he slipped through my fingers."
Dhoni was ultimately the highest-paid player at the auction, fetching $1.5 million from Chennai. Teams were permitted to spend a maximum of $5 million at the auction.
Uthappa, who features in the Indian one-day squad currently playing in a tri-series in Australia, was bought for $800,000 by Mumbai, which will be led by India batting great Sachin Tendulkar.
"We play cricket, do the job we love and the money that comes with it is a perk," PTI quoted Uthappa as saying in Sydney.
Uthappa will be joined at Mumbai by ace India spinner Harbhajan Singh, who fetched $850,000 in the auction after fierce bidding as the Mohali team too was eager on buying him.
"I'm happy to be playing under Tendulkar, who's my cricket idol," Singh was quoted as saying in Sydney by PTI. Singh said it would be unusual playing against his childhood friend and Punjab state teammate Yuvraj Singh, who will be leading Mohali.
Mohali's owners, industrialist Ness Wadia and film actress Priety Zinta, were delighted with their acquisitions, which included India all-rounder Irfan Pathan, Australia pace spearhead Brett Lee, Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, plus young Indian bowlers Shantakumaran Sreesanth and Piyush Chawla.
"The team comprises only winners and we'll play to win," said Wadia.
Jaipur's lineup will feature an interesting combination of South Africa skipper Graeme Smith and former Australian spin great Shane Warne, whose dislike for each other is well known and who have a history of fiery verbal exchanges.
The pair could boost light-spending Jaipur's prowess if they can establish a working relationship.
After the high-profile acquisitions, team franchises face the task of filling out their squads with players from their catchment areas and youngsters, whose presence in the squad is mandatory.
Team scouts have already started their search for promising youth, including reaching out to the India team currently participating in the U-19 World Cup in Malaysia.
Extracting brand value ahead of the IPL's launch will be difficult as the leading India players - the biggest draws at the auction - will be on national duty until three days ahead of the IPL's launch.
India's home Test series against South Africa will run from March 26-April 15, giving the Test stars just a few days to bond with new teammates and promote their teams.
Ageing Cricketers 'priceless' For Chennai Super Kings
Ageing Cricketers 'priceless' For Chennai Super Kings
Sunday 24th of February 2008Matthew Hayden, Muttiah Muralitharan and Stephen Fleming's age might be on the wrong side of 30 but their new employers India Cements are happy to include them on board the Chennai Super Kings team in the Indian Premier League (IPL).Super Kings shelled out a record $5.9 million for the 11 players they bought at the auction in Mumbai Wednesday. They bought India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for a staggering $1.5 million, the highest bid amount at the auction for IPL's Twenty20 tournament starting April 18.While paying such a huge amount for India's Twenty20 World Championship winning captain maybe a good proposition, Super Kings owner N. Srinivasan, the managing director of India Cements, feels that significant amount of money on Hayden, Muralitharan, Mkhaya Ntini, Fleming and Michael Hussey was also a wise investment.Twenty20 is considered cut-out for young cricketers and the presence of other young legs like Suresh Raina, Albie Morkel and Parthiv Patel will obviously make a difference, Srinivasan said.'If you look at our side it is very balanced and I think our investment is very much justified. A good side is always a mix of youth and experience. When a team is in crisis situation it will be the experience, which will help the youth to bail out the side,' Srinivasan told IANS. Srinivasan, who is also the treasurer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), claimed that going by current form the 30 plus cricketers are good enough to survive the newest and fastest version of the game.'They have an envious record and are performing even better than the youngsters. They are priceless and will be an asset for us,' said Srinivasan.Asked, whether the team went for Dhoni for his 'glamour quotient', Srinivasan said: 'He is a rare cricketer, genuine all rounder. He is an explosive batsman, an agile wicket keeper and if needed he can take off his gloves and can even bowl gentle medium pacers.'With 11 players bought in auction, is there any room to give enough chance to local talent?'The whole idea of IPL is to promote local talent. And we will do that 100 percent. I think the kind of players we have bought will inspire the next generation to take up the sport as a viable career option,' said Srinivasan.He was also optimistic that IPL team owners would make a handsome profit in the first year itself and fan and city loyalty will help them to build brand equity for Super Kings.'If you see the kind of hysteria the IPL has created, I am sure the owners will make profit in the first year. The teams will not only get a share of the IPL's telecast rights but also the local revenues like gate collection and a significant part of the in stadia advertisements,' he said.With some of the big names in world cricket in the team, Super Kings will be the side to watch out for. They will face Mumbai in their opening match April 22.
Sunday 24th of February 2008Matthew Hayden, Muttiah Muralitharan and Stephen Fleming's age might be on the wrong side of 30 but their new employers India Cements are happy to include them on board the Chennai Super Kings team in the Indian Premier League (IPL).Super Kings shelled out a record $5.9 million for the 11 players they bought at the auction in Mumbai Wednesday. They bought India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for a staggering $1.5 million, the highest bid amount at the auction for IPL's Twenty20 tournament starting April 18.While paying such a huge amount for India's Twenty20 World Championship winning captain maybe a good proposition, Super Kings owner N. Srinivasan, the managing director of India Cements, feels that significant amount of money on Hayden, Muralitharan, Mkhaya Ntini, Fleming and Michael Hussey was also a wise investment.Twenty20 is considered cut-out for young cricketers and the presence of other young legs like Suresh Raina, Albie Morkel and Parthiv Patel will obviously make a difference, Srinivasan said.'If you look at our side it is very balanced and I think our investment is very much justified. A good side is always a mix of youth and experience. When a team is in crisis situation it will be the experience, which will help the youth to bail out the side,' Srinivasan told IANS. Srinivasan, who is also the treasurer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), claimed that going by current form the 30 plus cricketers are good enough to survive the newest and fastest version of the game.'They have an envious record and are performing even better than the youngsters. They are priceless and will be an asset for us,' said Srinivasan.Asked, whether the team went for Dhoni for his 'glamour quotient', Srinivasan said: 'He is a rare cricketer, genuine all rounder. He is an explosive batsman, an agile wicket keeper and if needed he can take off his gloves and can even bowl gentle medium pacers.'With 11 players bought in auction, is there any room to give enough chance to local talent?'The whole idea of IPL is to promote local talent. And we will do that 100 percent. I think the kind of players we have bought will inspire the next generation to take up the sport as a viable career option,' said Srinivasan.He was also optimistic that IPL team owners would make a handsome profit in the first year itself and fan and city loyalty will help them to build brand equity for Super Kings.'If you see the kind of hysteria the IPL has created, I am sure the owners will make profit in the first year. The teams will not only get a share of the IPL's telecast rights but also the local revenues like gate collection and a significant part of the in stadia advertisements,' he said.With some of the big names in world cricket in the team, Super Kings will be the side to watch out for. They will face Mumbai in their opening match April 22.
Srinivasan all praise for Dhoni
Special Correspondent
Mumbai: Chennai Super Kings targeted Mahendra Singh Dhoni and off-spinner Muralitharan and picked them both in the first set of auction for the DLF IPL Twenty20 competition.
Franchise owner India Cements, owner of the $91 million priced Chennai region shelled out $1.5 million to Dhoni and $600,000 to Sri Lankan off-spinner Muralitharan as salary for the first season.
“We wanted them. Dhoni is an outstanding cricketer, a match-winner and India’s captain for one-dayers and who won the ICC T20 competition. He is a three-in-one player,” Mr. Srinivasan, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, India Cements told the The Hindu.Agarkar happy
Ajit Agarkar is looking forward to playing under Sourav Ganguly again and making Eden Gardens his temporary home for seven home matches for the Kolkata region.
Chosen by Red Chillies Entertainment, the franchise owner of the Kolkata region for $350,000, the 30-year old Agarkar is looking forward to wear the Kolkata colours.
“It’s great for the cricketers money-wise and it’s taken the earnings of the cricketers to another level. That said, I am looking forward to play six weeks of cricket with international players. Teams have targeted specific players and it will be a great opportunity to interact with international players with whom I have played against.”No difference
Left-arm spinner Murali Kartik said he will not find it new to play with a set of international cricketers. Kartik, too has been taken by the Kolkata region for $425,000.
“It will not be a new experience for me. I have been playing county cricket for four years for Lancashire and then for Middlesex. I have played with Nathan Astle, Stuart Law, Andrew Strauss and Chaminda Vaas.
“Yet, I like the IPL concept because it will provide a chance to match your skills against teams that will have a mix of international and Indian players. It will be a challenge. If John Buchanan is going to be the coach, that will make it even more interesting.”
Special Correspondent
Mumbai: Chennai Super Kings targeted Mahendra Singh Dhoni and off-spinner Muralitharan and picked them both in the first set of auction for the DLF IPL Twenty20 competition.
Franchise owner India Cements, owner of the $91 million priced Chennai region shelled out $1.5 million to Dhoni and $600,000 to Sri Lankan off-spinner Muralitharan as salary for the first season.
“We wanted them. Dhoni is an outstanding cricketer, a match-winner and India’s captain for one-dayers and who won the ICC T20 competition. He is a three-in-one player,” Mr. Srinivasan, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, India Cements told the The Hindu.Agarkar happy
Ajit Agarkar is looking forward to playing under Sourav Ganguly again and making Eden Gardens his temporary home for seven home matches for the Kolkata region.
Chosen by Red Chillies Entertainment, the franchise owner of the Kolkata region for $350,000, the 30-year old Agarkar is looking forward to wear the Kolkata colours.
“It’s great for the cricketers money-wise and it’s taken the earnings of the cricketers to another level. That said, I am looking forward to play six weeks of cricket with international players. Teams have targeted specific players and it will be a great opportunity to interact with international players with whom I have played against.”No difference
Left-arm spinner Murali Kartik said he will not find it new to play with a set of international cricketers. Kartik, too has been taken by the Kolkata region for $425,000.
“It will not be a new experience for me. I have been playing county cricket for four years for Lancashire and then for Middlesex. I have played with Nathan Astle, Stuart Law, Andrew Strauss and Chaminda Vaas.
“Yet, I like the IPL concept because it will provide a chance to match your skills against teams that will have a mix of international and Indian players. It will be a challenge. If John Buchanan is going to be the coach, that will make it even more interesting.”
Dravid satisfied with Bangalore squad
Ajay S Shankar
February 22, 2008
Rahul Dravid: "We have players who have played under pressure" © AFP
Rahul Dravid is pleased with the players the Bangalore franchise had procured in the IPL auction, and believes his side has individuals who can handle pressure.
Dravid, the icon for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, played down the talk of his side not buying any big names. "This is an erroneous perception," he told Cricinfo. "The quality of Indian and international players in our team speak for themselves. They may not be glamorous in the areas people typically judge them by, but in terms of cricket they are fantastic and at the end of the day this is a cricket tournament and cricket is what is important.
"We are fortunate to have such great players in the side. With them in the squad, we will get so much more experience and ability."
Unlike the others, the Bangalore franchise preferred innings builders, like Jacques Kallis, Wasim Jaffer and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, to aggressors. "We have players who have played under pressure," Dravid said, "and therefore are confident that under similar circumstances in the Twenty20 matches, they will perform exceedingly well."
Although the franchise bought Anil Kumble, they failed in their bid to purchase Robin Uthappa, another Bangalore-based player in the Indian team. Uthappa, who was bought by the Mumbai franchise for a whopping US$800,000, would have not only provided a balance to Bangalore's batting line-up but his purchase would have also helped fill up one slot among the four catchment area players.
"As a Bangalore player, I obviously would have liked to have had Robin, who is from our catchment area, in the team," Dravid said. "However, in an auction where there are rules and restrictions, it is not always possible to get every player one wants.
"In fact, none of the teams were able to get all the players they would have liked to. However, having said that I would like to add that I am excited with the team we have got."
On the potentially match-winning bowling attack that his team has lined up - Dale Steyn, Nathan Bracken, Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble, Dravid said, "The idea was to have a good balance, which is very important for the tournament."
Dravid said Australian allrounder Cameron White, whom Bangalore bought for US$500,000 at the auction, was an "exciting" addition.
"I think people are getting a bit confused by the price aspect. It's just reflective of the current situation in cricket and what people want. White is a very exciting Twenty20 player and his domestic record [with two Twenty20 hundreds] in Australia is phenomenal. He was always on our wishlist."
Asked whether he viewed the 44-day Twenty20 tournament starting in April 18 as a platform to stage a comeback into the Indian one-day team, Dravid said: "I am not looking at this that way. To be honest, this is something new for all of us. There are so many things you want to experience as a player. Personally, I have seen and experienced a lot over the last 12 years [in international cricket]. Now, I am just so glad that at this point of my career, I will be a part of this new experience."
Dravid didn't want to divulge much about the strategies that his side were planning to adopt during the tournament, set to start on April 18. "It is still too early for me to comment on this. At the moment I am focused on getting fit after my finger injury [sustained during the Test series in Australia] and preparing for the Test matches against South Africa."
February 22, 2008
Rahul Dravid: "We have players who have played under pressure" © AFP
Rahul Dravid is pleased with the players the Bangalore franchise had procured in the IPL auction, and believes his side has individuals who can handle pressure.
Dravid, the icon for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, played down the talk of his side not buying any big names. "This is an erroneous perception," he told Cricinfo. "The quality of Indian and international players in our team speak for themselves. They may not be glamorous in the areas people typically judge them by, but in terms of cricket they are fantastic and at the end of the day this is a cricket tournament and cricket is what is important.
"We are fortunate to have such great players in the side. With them in the squad, we will get so much more experience and ability."
Unlike the others, the Bangalore franchise preferred innings builders, like Jacques Kallis, Wasim Jaffer and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, to aggressors. "We have players who have played under pressure," Dravid said, "and therefore are confident that under similar circumstances in the Twenty20 matches, they will perform exceedingly well."
Although the franchise bought Anil Kumble, they failed in their bid to purchase Robin Uthappa, another Bangalore-based player in the Indian team. Uthappa, who was bought by the Mumbai franchise for a whopping US$800,000, would have not only provided a balance to Bangalore's batting line-up but his purchase would have also helped fill up one slot among the four catchment area players.
"As a Bangalore player, I obviously would have liked to have had Robin, who is from our catchment area, in the team," Dravid said. "However, in an auction where there are rules and restrictions, it is not always possible to get every player one wants.
"In fact, none of the teams were able to get all the players they would have liked to. However, having said that I would like to add that I am excited with the team we have got."
On the potentially match-winning bowling attack that his team has lined up - Dale Steyn, Nathan Bracken, Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble, Dravid said, "The idea was to have a good balance, which is very important for the tournament."
Dravid said Australian allrounder Cameron White, whom Bangalore bought for US$500,000 at the auction, was an "exciting" addition.
"I think people are getting a bit confused by the price aspect. It's just reflective of the current situation in cricket and what people want. White is a very exciting Twenty20 player and his domestic record [with two Twenty20 hundreds] in Australia is phenomenal. He was always on our wishlist."
Asked whether he viewed the 44-day Twenty20 tournament starting in April 18 as a platform to stage a comeback into the Indian one-day team, Dravid said: "I am not looking at this that way. To be honest, this is something new for all of us. There are so many things you want to experience as a player. Personally, I have seen and experienced a lot over the last 12 years [in international cricket]. Now, I am just so glad that at this point of my career, I will be a part of this new experience."
Dravid didn't want to divulge much about the strategies that his side were planning to adopt during the tournament, set to start on April 18. "It is still too early for me to comment on this. At the moment I am focused on getting fit after my finger injury [sustained during the Test series in Australia] and preparing for the Test matches against South Africa."
IPL's first year will be crucial: Dravid
February 22, 2008 21:11 IST
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is being perceived as the beginning of a lucrative new era for cricket, but former India captain Rahul Dravid [] says its success and impact on the game will depend on how it produces top class cricket in the first year.
"IPL is something new. It is going to be quite exciting and in the first year there is going to be a lot of interest. Obviously after that, it is really going to depend on how it picks up. I think the quality of cricket is important," Dravid told PTI in an exclusive interview.
"Because, people who come to watch (the matches) are going to expect good standard of cricket. At the end of the day, this (good cricket) is what would make IPL a success or failure. It is upto the players, both domestic and international, to provide that," the captain of Royal Challengers, the Bangalore team owned by business tycoon Vijay Mallya .
Asked if the IPL was good for cricket in the long run, Dravid said "I think only time will tell." The Bangalore icon player, who would earn more than Rs 4 crore in the first season from a maximum 10 matches, refused to buy the argument that IPL was all about money and said people should look at whether it gives the fans entertainment and good quality cricket.
"It is going to be about cricket. People want to see good standard of cricket. At the end of the day, it (good cricket) is going to be the most important," he said when asked whether money or cricket was at the frorefront in the IPL.
Dravid also feels that the price of players at the auction on Wednesday was not the true reflection of the capability of a player and the "limitations and certain rules" of the auction was the reason why a big star like Ricky Ponting got less than others.
"I don't think you have to look at what one player got at the auction and compare it with other players and say it is the actual value or performance level of the player based on what he got at the auction. Because the auction had certain rules, limitations and certain combinations. So, I don't think you can judge it (the worth of a player) like that."
The great merit of the IPL, according to Dravid, was the opportunity the domestic players, other than the BCCI-contracted players, would get by rubbing shoulders with some great players in the 44-day competition to be played in Twenty20 format.
"IPL is a domestic competition and it is about giving Indian players an opportunity to play in the big stage with some great players in the world," Dravid said.
Explaining how the IPL would benefit the players of the domestic circuit, he said, "In the playing XI, there will be seven Indian players and apart from the 35-40 BCCI-contracted players (like me), there will be at least 40-50 other domestic players in the eight teams."
"I am sure out of this 40-50 domestic players, 15-20 are going to get a chance to be in the first XI and play with or against some great players. That itself should be exciting," Dravid said.
"So, it is a domestic competition with international flavour and that is what we should not forget," he added. Dravid was also happy that the domestic circuit has more money now than it had earlier.
"I think there is quite a lot of money in domestic cricket as compared to earlier days. What the boys are being paid now for playing Ranji Trophy is lot more than paid five years ago. But, we need to make domestic cricket more professional and we have to encourage cricketers playing in domestic circuit," he added.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) is being perceived as the beginning of a lucrative new era for cricket, but former India captain Rahul Dravid [] says its success and impact on the game will depend on how it produces top class cricket in the first year.
"IPL is something new. It is going to be quite exciting and in the first year there is going to be a lot of interest. Obviously after that, it is really going to depend on how it picks up. I think the quality of cricket is important," Dravid told PTI in an exclusive interview.
"Because, people who come to watch (the matches) are going to expect good standard of cricket. At the end of the day, this (good cricket) is what would make IPL a success or failure. It is upto the players, both domestic and international, to provide that," the captain of Royal Challengers, the Bangalore team owned by business tycoon Vijay Mallya .
Asked if the IPL was good for cricket in the long run, Dravid said "I think only time will tell." The Bangalore icon player, who would earn more than Rs 4 crore in the first season from a maximum 10 matches, refused to buy the argument that IPL was all about money and said people should look at whether it gives the fans entertainment and good quality cricket.
"It is going to be about cricket. People want to see good standard of cricket. At the end of the day, it (good cricket) is going to be the most important," he said when asked whether money or cricket was at the frorefront in the IPL.
Dravid also feels that the price of players at the auction on Wednesday was not the true reflection of the capability of a player and the "limitations and certain rules" of the auction was the reason why a big star like Ricky Ponting got less than others.
"I don't think you have to look at what one player got at the auction and compare it with other players and say it is the actual value or performance level of the player based on what he got at the auction. Because the auction had certain rules, limitations and certain combinations. So, I don't think you can judge it (the worth of a player) like that."
The great merit of the IPL, according to Dravid, was the opportunity the domestic players, other than the BCCI-contracted players, would get by rubbing shoulders with some great players in the 44-day competition to be played in Twenty20 format.
"IPL is a domestic competition and it is about giving Indian players an opportunity to play in the big stage with some great players in the world," Dravid said.
Explaining how the IPL would benefit the players of the domestic circuit, he said, "In the playing XI, there will be seven Indian players and apart from the 35-40 BCCI-contracted players (like me), there will be at least 40-50 other domestic players in the eight teams."
"I am sure out of this 40-50 domestic players, 15-20 are going to get a chance to be in the first XI and play with or against some great players. That itself should be exciting," Dravid said.
"So, it is a domestic competition with international flavour and that is what we should not forget," he added. Dravid was also happy that the domestic circuit has more money now than it had earlier.
"I think there is quite a lot of money in domestic cricket as compared to earlier days. What the boys are being paid now for playing Ranji Trophy is lot more than paid five years ago. But, we need to make domestic cricket more professional and we have to encourage cricketers playing in domestic circuit," he added.
IPL aims to rope in Sunil Joshi
Bangalore: Left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi is prominent in the list of players that Bangalore outfit Royal Challengers is aiming to recruit from its local catchment area for the forthcoming Indian Premier League.
“Yes talks are on. I think the IPL is a great concept and it is also a great opportunity for a lot of Karnataka players. Twenty20 is not just about youth, you also need players with experience and that’s where I come in,” Joshi said.
Joshi also believes that skipper Rahul Dravid got the team he wanted. “Rahul knew the kind of players he wanted and he got them. It is all about playing well and winning all the games and the Bangalore team has a good mix. Players like Jacques Kallis are proven performers,” Joshi said.
“Yes talks are on. I think the IPL is a great concept and it is also a great opportunity for a lot of Karnataka players. Twenty20 is not just about youth, you also need players with experience and that’s where I come in,” Joshi said.
Joshi also believes that skipper Rahul Dravid got the team he wanted. “Rahul knew the kind of players he wanted and he got them. It is all about playing well and winning all the games and the Bangalore team has a good mix. Players like Jacques Kallis are proven performers,” Joshi said.
Symonds case shows dollar is changing priorities
SURELY Andrew Symonds isn't stupid enough to think he can simply pull out of the Pakistan tour. He is a contracted player. If he breaks that contract and plays in the Indian Premier League instead of touring Pakistan, then surely his days as an Australian player must be over.
Although I agree and admire his stance not to tour for safety reasons, it is laughable that he is prepared to play in a country across the border that has had its share of similar problems, yet feels more than safe enough to fill his pockets with $1.47 million.
Cricket Australia must step in and stamp its authority, and the players' association must show strong leadership, demanding that playing for your country take precedence over any other team.
Victorians David Hussey and Cameron White are two of the brightest prospects in Australian cricket and they have made the choice, rightly or wrongly, to be sold off to the highest bidder. I do not begrudge them for one minute — most of us in the same situation would have made the same decision.
Hussey is currently earning just above six figures to be a Victorian player, and then on Wednesday night, he found out when sitting in front of a computer at the SCG that his pay had just increased by 700%. If his team were to win the IPL competition, he will share in the $3.3 million prizemoney, elevating his earnings for 44 days' work to close to $1 million. Not bad for someone who had to leave his own state to get a game in Victoria and has played only one Twenty20 game for his country. If the Indian powerbrokers can see how valuable Hussey is, cricket authorities must now respond.
My big concern is the precedent this will set. It's terribly exciting but could prove massively destabilising. The absolute honour of being selected for Australia may now be superseded by the thrill of the enormous cash on offer elsewhere. I hope like crazy I am wrong but my gut feel is that the dollar will win out.
Undoubtedly, the older players of the domestic scene will be lining up for the superannuation payouts across the way — Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer, Matthew Elliott, Michael Kasprowicz, Mick Lewis and the like all had this circulating in their brains as their bodies were screaming for a rest.
Don't forget the other competition, the Indian Cricket League, a non-sanctioned tournament, also is offering good cash. Matthew Elliott is not confirmed but is believed to have signed a lucrative three-year deal with the breakaway group. This is one positive — with the older blokes moving on a bit earlier than otherwise expected, the door will open for exciting youngsters to emerge in our domestic scene.
The main concern I have is with the next in line for national call-ups — players such as Luke Pomersbach, Luke Ronchi, Adam Crosthwaite, Andrew McDonald, George Bailey, etc, not to mention Hussey and White. I'm not worried about their earning capacity — good on them — but their priorities in the future. Hussey is a star and is yet to be recognised for Australian honours — his time is now overdue. White has had a taste but has not consolidated. Neither can be blamed for their decisions to set themselves up financially, but they must ensure they still have the flame burning within to play for their country.
The money is awfully attractive. It will cause confusion with young minds and hungry managers, but is it as rewarding as carving out a successful Test and one-day career for Australia?
The honour of representing your state and country should be the most important thing for the next generation of cricketers to aspire to.
IPL warning
Cricket boss Justin Vaughan has been warned to tread carefully in his dealings with the Indian Premier League.
Vaughan is set to meet with star Caps Daniel Vettori, Jacob Oram and Brendon McCullum who have signed lucrative IPL contracts this week to discuss when they will arrive in England for the side's three-test series later this year.
The England tour clashes with the inaugural Indian Twenty20 competition in April and May and there is some talk the trio will play in the IPL and meet up with their international team-mates on May 5 a prospect that will see them unavailable for the first two warm-up matches of the tour.
Last night Vaughan stopped short of a guarantee that Vettori and co would arrive with their team-mates in late April and John "Mystery" Morrison a former Black Cap and leading commentator said world cricket would be waiting anxiously on the decision.
"It could be disastrous (if the players arrive late) because obviously these guys are key players and we are also talking about the captain of the side," Morrison told Sunday News.
"We might be about to see the opening shots of this new era of cricket.
Given much of the NZC's revenue comes from the ICC, which in turn gets a large chunk of its cash from India, Morrison said he wouldn't be surprised to see Indian money talk in this case.
"The issue this scenario raises is the question of Indian cricket and its role as an economic power in the game," said Morrison.
"New Zealand Cricket look like they are in a position where they don't want to upset that apple cart because a large supply of their money comes from the ICC and a large portion of the ICC's revenue is from the Indian Cricket Board the BCCI.
"We could actually see this franchise competition growing to such a level that it's bigger than international cricket."
Morrison wouldn't criticise the message Vaughan is sending by refusing to order his stars to tour from the word go and said the situation was awkward.
"I think Justin is having to be extremely delicate in this situation with the IPL players because he doesn't want to offend the ICC but at the same time I am sure he wants his best team over in England," he said.
Vaughan is set to meet with star Caps Daniel Vettori, Jacob Oram and Brendon McCullum who have signed lucrative IPL contracts this week to discuss when they will arrive in England for the side's three-test series later this year.
The England tour clashes with the inaugural Indian Twenty20 competition in April and May and there is some talk the trio will play in the IPL and meet up with their international team-mates on May 5 a prospect that will see them unavailable for the first two warm-up matches of the tour.
Last night Vaughan stopped short of a guarantee that Vettori and co would arrive with their team-mates in late April and John "Mystery" Morrison a former Black Cap and leading commentator said world cricket would be waiting anxiously on the decision.
"It could be disastrous (if the players arrive late) because obviously these guys are key players and we are also talking about the captain of the side," Morrison told Sunday News.
"We might be about to see the opening shots of this new era of cricket.
Given much of the NZC's revenue comes from the ICC, which in turn gets a large chunk of its cash from India, Morrison said he wouldn't be surprised to see Indian money talk in this case.
"The issue this scenario raises is the question of Indian cricket and its role as an economic power in the game," said Morrison.
"New Zealand Cricket look like they are in a position where they don't want to upset that apple cart because a large supply of their money comes from the ICC and a large portion of the ICC's revenue is from the Indian Cricket Board the BCCI.
"We could actually see this franchise competition growing to such a level that it's bigger than international cricket."
Morrison wouldn't criticise the message Vaughan is sending by refusing to order his stars to tour from the word go and said the situation was awkward.
"I think Justin is having to be extremely delicate in this situation with the IPL players because he doesn't want to offend the ICC but at the same time I am sure he wants his best team over in England," he said.
Undaunted by IPL, ICL to stage its next edition next
By Qaiser Mohammad AliNew Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Refusing to be overawed or threatened by the money-splurging Indian Premier League (IPL), the breakaway Indian Cricket League (ICL) said Thursday it will stage an extravaganza in Delhi, Chandigarh and Hyderabad next month, possibly adding more teams. Ashish Kaul, executive vice-president of Essel Group, the promoters of ICL, said the company would this week announce the exact dates of the next Twenty20 jamboree involving stars like Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul Haq.
“The IPL will in no way threaten ICL because there is hardly anything common between the two except that both play cricket. Our vision, format, models and objectives are different from them,” Kaul told IANS.
“There will be four international [foreign] players per team, as was the case in the first edition, but this time we may have more teams than the six in the previous tournament. The details will be out by this weekend, but there will be no change in the tournament format,” he said.
Business magnate Subhash Chandra launched ICL after Zee lost the race for money spinning five-year cricket board television rights which went to Nimbus. Then, last May, Zee pulled out of its five-year contract for overseas television rights given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) following a new government law stipulating mandatory sharing of telecast of important matches with Doordarshan.
Last September the BCCI launched the lucrative IPL, carrying $3 million prize money and approved by the International Cricket Council and the other nine Test-playing countries. After the 44-day IPL tournament, beginning April 18, the BCCI will also organise a Champions Twenty20 tournament carrying $5 million and involving teams from India Australia, England, Pakistan and South Africa. The dates and venues are yet to be announced.
Last month, the BCCI auctioned the eight IPL franchises for a cumulative $718 million, with some of the best known Bollywood stars and business tycoons buying Mumbai (Mukesh Ambani, for $111.9 mn), Bangalore (Vijay Mallya, $106 mn), Kolkata (Shah Rukh Khan, $75.09 mn), Mohali (Preity Zinta, $76 mn), Jaipur (Emerging Media, $67 mn), Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle, $107.01 mn), Chennai (India Cements, $91 mn) and Delhi (GMR Group, $84 million).
The eight franchise owners spent $36.6 million on buying 75 players at the auction in Mumbai Wednesday.
Zee, on the other hand, had signed the players for an undisclosed amount, but there was no auction.
Kaul said that the idea of launching was not to spend big money, though when the ICL was launched, the IPL concept was still under wraps.
“This is definitely their [IPL’s] moment of glory. But our objective is to give an opportunity to the unknown domestic Indian cricketer and help raise the standard of the international game through ICL. The first tournament in Panchkula in December was at par with international standards, in terms of television coverage etc.,” he said.
“The BCCI is not thinking about its domestic players. How come some of their own Ranji players are playing with torn pads and bats? IPL is a high profile tournament and it is only making Sachin Tendulkars and Sourav Gangulys of the world only richer,” he lamented.
Tendulkar and Ganguly were given the status of ‘icons’ and were not auctioned like others. Instead, they will receive 15 percent more money then the most expensive player in their teams.
By this calculation, Tendulkar assured income of $1.1 million.
“The IPL will in no way threaten ICL because there is hardly anything common between the two except that both play cricket. Our vision, format, models and objectives are different from them,” Kaul told IANS.
“There will be four international [foreign] players per team, as was the case in the first edition, but this time we may have more teams than the six in the previous tournament. The details will be out by this weekend, but there will be no change in the tournament format,” he said.
Business magnate Subhash Chandra launched ICL after Zee lost the race for money spinning five-year cricket board television rights which went to Nimbus. Then, last May, Zee pulled out of its five-year contract for overseas television rights given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) following a new government law stipulating mandatory sharing of telecast of important matches with Doordarshan.
Last September the BCCI launched the lucrative IPL, carrying $3 million prize money and approved by the International Cricket Council and the other nine Test-playing countries. After the 44-day IPL tournament, beginning April 18, the BCCI will also organise a Champions Twenty20 tournament carrying $5 million and involving teams from India Australia, England, Pakistan and South Africa. The dates and venues are yet to be announced.
Last month, the BCCI auctioned the eight IPL franchises for a cumulative $718 million, with some of the best known Bollywood stars and business tycoons buying Mumbai (Mukesh Ambani, for $111.9 mn), Bangalore (Vijay Mallya, $106 mn), Kolkata (Shah Rukh Khan, $75.09 mn), Mohali (Preity Zinta, $76 mn), Jaipur (Emerging Media, $67 mn), Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle, $107.01 mn), Chennai (India Cements, $91 mn) and Delhi (GMR Group, $84 million).
The eight franchise owners spent $36.6 million on buying 75 players at the auction in Mumbai Wednesday.
Zee, on the other hand, had signed the players for an undisclosed amount, but there was no auction.
Kaul said that the idea of launching was not to spend big money, though when the ICL was launched, the IPL concept was still under wraps.
“This is definitely their [IPL’s] moment of glory. But our objective is to give an opportunity to the unknown domestic Indian cricketer and help raise the standard of the international game through ICL. The first tournament in Panchkula in December was at par with international standards, in terms of television coverage etc.,” he said.
“The BCCI is not thinking about its domestic players. How come some of their own Ranji players are playing with torn pads and bats? IPL is a high profile tournament and it is only making Sachin Tendulkars and Sourav Gangulys of the world only richer,” he lamented.
Tendulkar and Ganguly were given the status of ‘icons’ and were not auctioned like others. Instead, they will receive 15 percent more money then the most expensive player in their teams.
By this calculation, Tendulkar assured income of $1.1 million.
Lalit Modi is the most powerful cricket administrator in world cricket.
The brains behind money-spinning Twenty20 league
By K.R. Nayar
Dubai: Lalit Modi is one of the vice-presidents of the Board of Control in India (BCCI), but is known as a marketing wizard. It his business acumen that has helped swell the BCCI coffers.
When business tycoon Subash Chandra introduced the Indian Cricket League (ICL), which threatened to shatter the monopoly of BCCI, all of them turned towards Modi.
He emerged as their saviour, creating the Indian Premier League. So brilliant was his idea that international cricketers are now flocking around him.
Forty-five-year-old Modi was born in Delhi but his roots are from Rajasthan and he lives in Mumbai. It was Inderjit Bindra, a former president of the BCCI, who introduced Modi into cricket administration by appointing him as the vice-president of the Punjab Cricket Association.
Modi went on to become the president of Rajasthan. He hails from a business background and is the scion of Modi Enterprises.
He is also a board member of Godfrey Philips. His clout with the Rajasthan government is such that many say he is the ex-officio chief minister of the state.
Sharad Pawar, the president of the BCCI who is also a politician, used Modi's help in formulating his plans to successfully oust Jagmohan Dalmiyan.
Once Dalmiya was ousted Pawar and Bindra gifted him the BCCI vice-president's post. Modi ensured that the BCCI revenues increased seven-fold since he took office.
Today Modi is the most powerful cricket administrator in world cricket.
All you wanted to know about IPL
What is the Indian Premier League?It’s a Twenty20 tournament involving eight teams (cities), starting April 18 and ending on June 1. Launched on September 14, 2007, it’ll be organized by the BCCI and has the sanction of the ICC. The model, based on the same lines as the English Premier League (EPL) in football and the National Basketball League (NBA) in the US, is franchise-based and the eight teams will be owned by a host of businessmen and celebrities. The players will be bought through auction and will represent the teams/cities who bid for them. The matches will be played on home and away basis.
Who has the TV rights of IPL?Sony Television and Singapore-based World Sports Group, who paid a whopping $1billion to bag the rights for 10 years.
Which are the eight teams and their franchisees?1. Mumbai (Mukesh Ambani)2. Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle)3. Kolkata (Shah Rukh’s Red Chillies Entertainment)4. Chennai (India Cements)5. Delhi (GMR Holdings)6. Bangalore (Vijay Mallya)7. Mohali (Preity Zinta & Ness Wadia)8. Jaipur (Emerging Media)
What is the money involved?Overall prize money is US$5million, with the winners getting $2m. The remaining money will be given in the form of awards like ‘man-of-the-match’ etc.
How much does the Board get?The BCCI has earned $723.59m from the ‘sale’ of the eight teams. On top of that, the Board will get around $1billion from the sale of TV rights.
Will the IPL dates clash with cricket seasons of other countries?For India, no. It’s off-season here. But it clashes with the tours of other countries. The BCCI plans to sort this out during the ICC chief executives’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
Some other salient features of the IPL are...*The franchisees will have the freedom to run the teams in their own style, bring their own sponsors and even name the team as they wish (after consulting the IPL board)* After the auction in the inaugural year, they will be free to trade their players, as is done in various leagues around the world* The players also get a share in the profits, starting from TV revenue, gate money and merchandising* The teams can be listed on the stock exchange* Top players in the teams are expected to earn a minimum of Rs 1-2 crore per season as guarantee money. They are also slated to get salaries on which there won’t be any cap* All IPL matches will be played under lights, as per ICC rules. The League will feature a total of 59 matches that would be spread over 44 days. All matches will be played on Saturdays and Sundays plus one yet-to-be-decided weekday. There will be two matches per day, the start time being 5pm* The IPL governing council will be in charge of running, operating and managing the league independently
Englishman's wealth of ideas helping India to milk its latest cash cow
Mark Souster
It began with a gentlemanly chat over a cup of tea at Wimbledon eight months ago and this week turned into the most valuable start-up event in sporting history and a tournament worth possibly $3.5billion (about £1.8 billion) over the next decade. When Andrew Wildblood, a senior vice-president and corporate director for India at IMG, sat down at the All England Club last July with Lalit Modi, the vice-president of the BCCI, both men shared a vision. They wanted to re-energise Indian domestic cricket and to tap into the apparently insatiable demand for the sport in the country.
The constraints of the domestic calendar mean that there will not be any Englishmen actively involved in the inaugural DFL Indian Premier League that starts in April, but Wildblood will be there to see the fruition of his IMG team's work.
It is a concept that has gripped the imagination of the cricketing world, one that before a ball has been bowled appears to have brought together sport, showbiz and big business, with Bollywood stars and mega-rich tycoons and conglomerates vying for the prestige of owning a team.
The financial figures are mind- boggling, akin to a modern-day gold rush, not least for the players. Mukesh Ambani, one of India's richest men, paid more for the Bombay franchise than Randy Lerner did to buy Aston Villa, who came complete with £30million of Birmingham real estate. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is, temporarily at least, earning more per week than Cristiano Ronaldo. Television rights went for more than $1billion.
So how did it come about? “Initially, we kicked around a few ideas,” Wildblood said yesterday from India, which over the past months has become a second home as he and his team work ceaselessly to overcome the hurdles inherent in establishing such a tournament from scratch. It has been a huge undertaking with an array of processes that all had to be rigorously tested.
“For some time, Lalit had had a vision of what he wanted and in order to do that we agreed it had to be based upon a city to city format rather than state to state,” Wildblood said. “It was a broad vision with no meat on the bone. We also concurred that the model should be based on US-style franchises whereby the owners of the teams would also benefit from the properties that were sold as a consequence of the creation of the product, ie, television and sponsorship.”
Within a month the concept had taken shape. Eight city teams will play home and away, with 59 matches over 44 days taking place almost exclusively during prime-time television hours, using the Twenty20 format. A commercial structure was developed to wrap around the sporting model to create an investment vehicle that would prove attractive to owners.
“I knew it would be huge,” Wildblood, 50, who is married with two children and lives in London, said. “There is nothing else that has been launched as a start-up that comes anywhere near to it in sport. We got a little lucky when India won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup, which transformed the perception of that type of cricket into the format which 76 per cent of the population now say is their favourite.
“It has been the project of a lifetime, one of the biggest single things that IMG has ever done. From a business context, it has been life-fulfilling.”
It has comes as a result of an incredible convergence of a number of things: the advent of Twenty20, the development of the Indian economy, the desire to regenerate the stadium infrastructure before the 2011 cricket World Cup that India will co-host and the demand for more entertainment opportunities in a maturing economy.
“IMG has done a pretty amazing job,” he said. “There have been bear traps all the way down the line, but we have managed to avoid them because we have been incredibly rigorous and determined that what we constructed was totally robust.”
Modi agreed. At the culmination of the auction of the world's best players on Tuesday, he paid the ultimate compliment to the company without which Modi said the IPL would have been stillborn. When the first ball is bowled on April 18, in the match between Bangalore and Kolkata, Wildblood will be entitled to feel satisfied at a job well done.
BCCI warns franchisees over U-19 boys
NEW DELHI, February 23: With Indian Premier League teams in a hurry to sign up domestic players, the cricket Board has been forced to become a bit vigilant. The BCCI is worried about the fact that agents of franchisees have reached Kuala Lumpur to negotiate with the Under-19 players, that too on the eve of their quarterfinal match against England on Sunday. "Why distract them when they are busy with the World Cup? The board has told the team management to take appropriate steps and put the bidding of U-19 players on hold," the board official said. Sources told TOI that two U-19 players have already signed contracts with the franchisees. When told about that, the official said those contracts would be considered as null and void. Reacting to BCCI's temporary freeze on hiring U-19 players, one of the franchisees said: "Now at least, we can think about getting the right team." Another franchisee expressed surprise at the fact that the colts are bargaining. "I can't imagine an Under-19 player telling us that he is already being offered Rs 40 lakh by a team and that he is willing to play for my side if he is offered more money," an official for the franchisee said.
I am happy as long as players make money: Lalit Modi
New Delhi (PTI): The mastermind behind the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL), Lalit Modi said he is not too much bothered about the anomalies in pricing of some players during the recently-held auction.
Modi said the hype of India's emergence in cricket was responsible for some young players being sold for healthy price tags.
"The hype that India is the world champs in Twenty20 is taking the whole team forward. There are people who are paying huge sum of money and today some may say that someone is over-priced or under-priced".
"As far as I am concerned, if players make more money, I am happy. Take the example of Ishant Sharma, six months back nobody knew him," Modi told NDTV on Saturday.
Modi said he was taken by surprise over the huge success of the IPL as a business venture.
"We are probably 30-40 per cent above our business plan. We thought it may fall in that area but never thought it would really happen. I myself is surprised by the fact that actually it has reached today. We would not have been able to write a better script ourself. Now we just have to deliver."
Modi set aside the controversy that he helped Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan hours before the start of the players' bidding.
In the dead of night on Tuesday, Modi visited Shah Rukh and courted controversy for helping Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt Ltd -- the IPL franchise owned by the actor.
Modi, however, said that he showed no favouritism and tried to help other franchisees as well.
"I have been accused of helping someone in the bidding process by some news channels. I didn't only visit Shahrukh Khan, I was with four teams owners at night. I was with Mohali before that, I was with Jaipur, I was with UB team. It's my job to explain them the process and explain them how to go for the bidding," Modi said.
Modi said players would be the ultimate gainers because of the IPL.
"Money is good for the game. It is not the board, the players are also making the money. More money means more stars, more enjoyment for the people. Even if in other sports like football, there are players who play for the country and perform even though the clubs pay them 10 times more.
"So similarly in cricket the country will always come first. And if you do not perform at the international level, you would not be chosen in the clubs."
The BCCI Vice President, however, said that the IPL, which would feature the Twenty20 format of the game, would never prove to be a menace for one-day and Test cricket.
"I don't think it will ever happen. There are lots of people who will die for their country, cheer for the country. It will take time for the club culture to set in. It won't happen overnight.
Modi also allayed fears that the IPL would affect the International Cricket Council's Future Tour Programme and because of the league India might not be able to host weaker sides.
"ICC or I or anybody else cannot create a window till 2011. FTP, till 2011, is already frozen and nobody is asking to change it till 2011. It is the media who is speculating. We have a natural window in the month of March when most of the countries stop playing professional cricket," he said.
Modi said the hype of India's emergence in cricket was responsible for some young players being sold for healthy price tags.
"The hype that India is the world champs in Twenty20 is taking the whole team forward. There are people who are paying huge sum of money and today some may say that someone is over-priced or under-priced".
"As far as I am concerned, if players make more money, I am happy. Take the example of Ishant Sharma, six months back nobody knew him," Modi told NDTV on Saturday.
Modi said he was taken by surprise over the huge success of the IPL as a business venture.
"We are probably 30-40 per cent above our business plan. We thought it may fall in that area but never thought it would really happen. I myself is surprised by the fact that actually it has reached today. We would not have been able to write a better script ourself. Now we just have to deliver."
Modi set aside the controversy that he helped Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan hours before the start of the players' bidding.
In the dead of night on Tuesday, Modi visited Shah Rukh and courted controversy for helping Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt Ltd -- the IPL franchise owned by the actor.
Modi, however, said that he showed no favouritism and tried to help other franchisees as well.
"I have been accused of helping someone in the bidding process by some news channels. I didn't only visit Shahrukh Khan, I was with four teams owners at night. I was with Mohali before that, I was with Jaipur, I was with UB team. It's my job to explain them the process and explain them how to go for the bidding," Modi said.
Modi said players would be the ultimate gainers because of the IPL.
"Money is good for the game. It is not the board, the players are also making the money. More money means more stars, more enjoyment for the people. Even if in other sports like football, there are players who play for the country and perform even though the clubs pay them 10 times more.
"So similarly in cricket the country will always come first. And if you do not perform at the international level, you would not be chosen in the clubs."
The BCCI Vice President, however, said that the IPL, which would feature the Twenty20 format of the game, would never prove to be a menace for one-day and Test cricket.
"I don't think it will ever happen. There are lots of people who will die for their country, cheer for the country. It will take time for the club culture to set in. It won't happen overnight.
Modi also allayed fears that the IPL would affect the International Cricket Council's Future Tour Programme and because of the league India might not be able to host weaker sides.
"ICC or I or anybody else cannot create a window till 2011. FTP, till 2011, is already frozen and nobody is asking to change it till 2011. It is the media who is speculating. We have a natural window in the month of March when most of the countries stop playing professional cricket," he said.
No poaching of Under-19 players for IPL, says BCCI
New Delhi (PTI): Concerned that big bucks can distract young players at the ongoing Under-19 World Cup, the BCCI has directed franchisee owners of the Indian Premier League not to sign contracts with these players for the time being.
Currently the Indian youngsters are doing well in the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia and the IPL agents have been trying to hire these players by offering lucrative contracts.
The IPL stipulations say that each of the eight franchisees must hire at least four under-22 players and amounts ranging from USD 20,000 to USD 50,000 are reportedly being offered to the youngsters to join a side.
The Indian Board, however, is not impressed with the bid to poach the young players and has issued a directive to all Under-19 cricketers and the franchisees not to sign any contract until further notice.
"We are not allowing any Under-19 players to sign up with a franchisee as of now," IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi said.
About the contracts already signed with a few under-19 players, he said, "They will be null and void."
Currently the Indian youngsters are doing well in the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia and the IPL agents have been trying to hire these players by offering lucrative contracts.
The IPL stipulations say that each of the eight franchisees must hire at least four under-22 players and amounts ranging from USD 20,000 to USD 50,000 are reportedly being offered to the youngsters to join a side.
The Indian Board, however, is not impressed with the bid to poach the young players and has issued a directive to all Under-19 cricketers and the franchisees not to sign any contract until further notice.
"We are not allowing any Under-19 players to sign up with a franchisee as of now," IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi said.
About the contracts already signed with a few under-19 players, he said, "They will be null and void."
Big money has its dangers
Apart from the obvious and envy-producing upsizing of our top cricketers' pay packets, there could be an upside to the Indian Premier League (IPL).
However that upside may exist only in a perfect world and when did an abundance of wealth produce a perfect world? More likely the cash floating around will only end up perverting the present cricket environment.
I think it is a good thing our top players are now being remunerated so substantially. In a perfect world, and if the IPL continues indefinitely into the future, what an incentive it provides for our cricketing talent. If New Zealand gets only a handful of IPL contracts, then obviously you want to be such a fine player that you work your way into the calculations of the IPL franchise administrators. To do that, you would need to perform to world-class standard in Twenty/20 internationals, one day internationals and test cricket. I'd imagine New Zealand Cricket would take that spinoff.
But that's a perfect world and I can't see it taking long before that world is shattered by dollars.
For one thing, there may be a bit of dressing room jealousy. Some players may not be altogether happy that some teammates are set up for life.
Older players not on the IPL payroll will need a retirement plan - which will make the ICL more attractive. That may take a few of our older players out of the game sooner than is ideal but that can be absorbed. However, if some of the better up-and-coming talent get impatient for the IPL promised land, they might opt for the ICL too. If the IPL prospers, the ICL may drift off but there is a real threat to world cricket if the IPL flourishes.
If you've paid US$100 million for a franchise, you are going to want to work that asset hard. More games, more tournaments and a hell of lot more pressure on the Future Tours Programme.
That in turn is going to pressure players to be available for more IPL cricket and that could affect test match availability.
We may find that international performance becomes a qualifying standard for IPL contracts and, once that's achieved, it's time to scale down one's international commitments.
Also, do you want to be a player who can bat for a long time and win tests or just a sensational hitter of a cricket ball?
The upshot of last week's IPL player auction is that, for a New Zealand cricketer, the most lucrative form of the game is not international cricket.
Supposedly IPL cricket will not infringe upon international cricket but for how long?
I get the feeling that Indian-generated US dollars will once again dictate ICC terms.
However that upside may exist only in a perfect world and when did an abundance of wealth produce a perfect world? More likely the cash floating around will only end up perverting the present cricket environment.
I think it is a good thing our top players are now being remunerated so substantially. In a perfect world, and if the IPL continues indefinitely into the future, what an incentive it provides for our cricketing talent. If New Zealand gets only a handful of IPL contracts, then obviously you want to be such a fine player that you work your way into the calculations of the IPL franchise administrators. To do that, you would need to perform to world-class standard in Twenty/20 internationals, one day internationals and test cricket. I'd imagine New Zealand Cricket would take that spinoff.
But that's a perfect world and I can't see it taking long before that world is shattered by dollars.
For one thing, there may be a bit of dressing room jealousy. Some players may not be altogether happy that some teammates are set up for life.
Older players not on the IPL payroll will need a retirement plan - which will make the ICL more attractive. That may take a few of our older players out of the game sooner than is ideal but that can be absorbed. However, if some of the better up-and-coming talent get impatient for the IPL promised land, they might opt for the ICL too. If the IPL prospers, the ICL may drift off but there is a real threat to world cricket if the IPL flourishes.
If you've paid US$100 million for a franchise, you are going to want to work that asset hard. More games, more tournaments and a hell of lot more pressure on the Future Tours Programme.
That in turn is going to pressure players to be available for more IPL cricket and that could affect test match availability.
We may find that international performance becomes a qualifying standard for IPL contracts and, once that's achieved, it's time to scale down one's international commitments.
Also, do you want to be a player who can bat for a long time and win tests or just a sensational hitter of a cricket ball?
The upshot of last week's IPL player auction is that, for a New Zealand cricketer, the most lucrative form of the game is not international cricket.
Supposedly IPL cricket will not infringe upon international cricket but for how long?
I get the feeling that Indian-generated US dollars will once again dictate ICC terms.
The week that changed cricket forever
The extraordinary sale of international players at an auction in Mumbai on Wednesday marked a new era in which rewards will start to rival those of footballers
'Without a doubt our objective is to be bigger than the English Premier League' - Lalit Modi, Indian Premier League chairman and commissioner
'What is sad is that within five years maybe international cricket will no longer exist because of the IPL' - Kapil Dev, Wisden India Cricketer of the 20th century
Midday, New Delhi, 20 February 2008. Kapil Dev drinks sugared coffee in his plush apartment in Greater Kailash, an affluent part of the Indian capital. The only man to captain his country to victory in cricket's World Cup cannot stop glancing at the television screen blinking away in the background as it relays news of the extraordinary auction of Indian Premier League players at a Mumbai hotel.
Kapil is the public face of the Indian Cricket League, the country's first Twenty20 competition, and detested rival of the IPL. The player who beat Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar to the accolade of Wisden's best Indian cricketer of the 20th century is supposed to be talking up his T20 competition this morning, and looking forward to its second edition, which begins next month. He makes an admirable attempt. Yet, after an opening tournament before Christmas that included England players Paul Nixon, Chris Read, Vikram Solanki and Darren Maddy, the ICL has become a footnote, at best. And Kapil, however much he twinkles, seems to sense it.
Instead it is the IPL that is transfixing India's cricket-crazy population of 1.2 billion. The eight-franchise T20 league was launched by a furious Indian cricket board [BCCI] in reaction to the creation of the ICL by Subhash Chandra, owner of Zee-TV - one of India's biggest broadcast companies. Now, while Kapil feigns indifference, on Mumbai's waterfront Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta and billionaires including Vijay Mallya, owner of the Force India Formula One team, are haggling over some of sport's most elite flesh.
By the day's end, 78 of the world's best cricketers have passed under the gavel of Richard Madley - an English auctioneer more used to punting cricket bats - and Khan and Zinta's press conference has added a further sprinkle of stardust.
Kapil's successful leadership of India's 1983 World Cup campaign did much to ignite the love of the shortened game on the subcontinent that began the shift of power in world cricket to this region. Stadiums sold out for one-day internationals, bringing massive revenues in advertising and sponsorship. When Kapil's countryman Jagmohan Dalmiya became president of the ICC in 1997, cricket's new order was firmly in place. It is the fruits of this transformation that would seem to have been fully realised on Wednesday.
But now Kapil has fallen out seriously with the BCCI. Once accused of match-fixing by an Indian board official, Kapil had the pension he receives as a former India player suspended because of his involvement with the ICL, whose players are banned from representing India.
Despite all the acrimony, Kapil cannot hide his fascination with the waterfront action. 'I don't know what's going on down there with this auction,' he says with a grin. 'I just cannot tell.'
What Kapil and the watching millions witnessed was a day that changed cricket forever - one that could also have serious implications for the future of sport in general over the coming decades. Attended by a media scrum described by one BBC correspondent as more frantic than the day Britain decided to go to war in Iraq, the auction raised enough for £21m to go straight into the players' pockets for a maximum of 44 days' work. India's captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, was the biggest winner, pulling in around £750,000. Sri Lanka's Chamara Silva, the least valued player, still earned himself £50,000 despite having played only nine Tests.
All this was for a competition that, until it actually begins on 18 April, no one can know exactly how it will be received by its core constituency, the Indian public. But Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner who masterminded proceedings, is more than confident.
'Oh, I'm extremely happy,' he tells Observer Sport when the media frenzy has moved on to issues such as which teams have been the shrewdest spenders - Hyderabad with Adam Gilchrist and company, apparently - and a rumour concerning clandestine meetings between Modi and some of the franchise owners on the eve of the bid.
'It has gone beyond our expectations and is so exciting to see. We have the right building blocks of the right bodies, right format and right players,' says Modi, a man of considerable private means having been born to a wealthy family. 'The next step is to make the competition a good experience for the fans. We researched it properly and studied the right models and structures and got powerful people to buy into it.'
Modi is also the BCCI's vice-president and marketing director and his delight is hardly surprising when considering the sums he has engineered. The broadcast rights were sold for $918 million (£450m) for the next 10 years.
In its 44 days of competition - run on a league format - there will be 59 IPL games. Each yearly instalment of six weeks, then, has gone for around £45m.
The current four-year deal for the total broadcast rights to English football's Premier League was £2.7bn, around four times what Modi pulled off. But the football season is six times longer than an edition of the IPL. And, it took the Premier League 15 years to build those figures.
Suddenly America and Europe, sport's traditional powerbase, have a new challenger. 'We studied the English Premier League, the European football leagues and American sports,' says Modi, 44, who spent much of his youth in the US learning about sports marketing, 'and took a piece from each. But the IPL is based primarily on the English Premier League. Except the EPL does not have player caps [limits on wages and transfer fees], which has advantages and disadvantages. The IPL does. We're starting a new product and wanted to ensure that all teams are strong, and not too small beforehand.
'Sure, some players will earn a lot. And some not so much. But there are opportunities for local players and youngsters will get their chance,' he says of a rule that dictates no more than four overseas players can play in a match. 'In [this kind of weighting] there is a similarity to how the National Football League organises itself. But the EPL is gigantic, that's our model - we want to have a solid footing over the next three years.'
Modi is confident all of the IPL investors will be rewarded. While Sony, the broadcaster, has to sell a 10-second advertising slot for £3,250 to recoup its outlay, Modi calmly states: 'I hope the club owners can make money from this.' These are led by Khan and Zinta, who, respectively, part-own Team Kolkata and Team Mohali. The remaining six franchises are controlled by an array of Indian corporations, and the tycoon Mallya, who also owns the I-League football clubs, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.
'The owners receive 80 per cent of the broadcast rights, 60 per cent of sponsorship, 87.5 per cent of merchandising and all of the gate receipts and team sponsorship amounts,' Modi says.
The total paid for the franchises was $756m, which is about £45m a team. A low-ranking Premier League club free of debt would probably be satisfied with that valuation, which Modi has created in less than 12 months. He is certainly candid about the ambition of the IPL. 'Yes, the English Premier League earns lots of money,' he says. 'But there are over a billion people in India and then there are all the other cricket lovers around the world.
'Our objective is to be bigger than the EPL, definitely. This is not just about the Asian community in India or elsewhere. My son's favourite football team is Manchester United, so why could this not happen the other way round?'
On Friday, The Times of India offered one answer. 'Harbhajan Singh has enjoyed almost demi-god status while playing in Mohali,' it said, 'but will the local crowd be supportive if he dismisses Yuvraj Singh while playing for Mumbai?'
Alongside accusations of greed, it is this claim of a lack of tradition that forms the main argument against Modi and the IPL - that an artificially created contest between players whose loyalty is only to their immense salary will be reflected in disappointing crowds unsure which local hero to cheer.
Modi, though, hardly seems to care. In a further indication of just who now holds the power in world cricket, he was dismissive of the ICC's proposal, tabled on Thursday, that an official window for the IPL should not be created in the international calendar. This is due to be ratified next month, but Modi is not moved. 'I'm not concerned. Most countries' season ends in March, apart from the West Indies and England,' he says, apparently dismissive that English cricket's pre-season will prevent Kevin Pietersen and company playing unless an official window is created. 'Our time of year [for the IPL] has traditionally been free, it is a natural window - and I'm sure that will stay.'
And what of the ICL, which was created when Chandra's offer for the rights to India's internationals was refused by the BCCI? 'The ICL was created for profit, and for television. Not for fans,' Modi says. 'It has no infrastructure [all of the first competition was played at a single ground], whereas the BCCI owns stadiums all over India. It is owned by one man who can only do so much. We have eight owners who will want to win all the time.'
So what, then, are the true implications of this past week in India? If the power of world cricket is now firmly in India and in the hands of tycoons and corporations, what of the future for the game's traditional forms? Asked if success for the IPL might lead to 'Test' matches between the franchises, Modi does not completely rule out the prospect. 'We will try and play exhibition matches. But the IPL is a Twenty20 competition. So I don't think so,' he says.
Yet what is revealing is that Modi now considers himself to be in a position where he can seriously consider such a question, which should surely be enough to send a shudder through the ICC.
It is inevitably reminiscent of Kerry Packer's breakaway World Series Cricket in the 1970s - the first important wresting of power from the old guard. Brett Lee, who cost Mohali around £400,000, agrees. 'If we look back in 10 years this is going to be a massive landmark - like when the World Series started,' the Australia fast bowler says.
Will it, then, ultimately be the end of the ICC? 'It is not part of their mandate. Theirs is international cricket, this is a domestic league,' Modi says, again seeming to rule nothing out. 'India didn't have a good domestic competition with international players. This will.'
Kapil Dev is not sure. 'One should first [want to] represent one's country because that is the most important thing. I would never want to see the boys come out and say, "I play for my club, not my country."
'The thing now is to watch. What will happen over the next five years?' he says, pointing at the television. 'This could be the end of international cricket. Who actually, really, knows?'
'Without a doubt our objective is to be bigger than the English Premier League' - Lalit Modi, Indian Premier League chairman and commissioner
'What is sad is that within five years maybe international cricket will no longer exist because of the IPL' - Kapil Dev, Wisden India Cricketer of the 20th century
Midday, New Delhi, 20 February 2008. Kapil Dev drinks sugared coffee in his plush apartment in Greater Kailash, an affluent part of the Indian capital. The only man to captain his country to victory in cricket's World Cup cannot stop glancing at the television screen blinking away in the background as it relays news of the extraordinary auction of Indian Premier League players at a Mumbai hotel.
Kapil is the public face of the Indian Cricket League, the country's first Twenty20 competition, and detested rival of the IPL. The player who beat Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar to the accolade of Wisden's best Indian cricketer of the 20th century is supposed to be talking up his T20 competition this morning, and looking forward to its second edition, which begins next month. He makes an admirable attempt. Yet, after an opening tournament before Christmas that included England players Paul Nixon, Chris Read, Vikram Solanki and Darren Maddy, the ICL has become a footnote, at best. And Kapil, however much he twinkles, seems to sense it.
Instead it is the IPL that is transfixing India's cricket-crazy population of 1.2 billion. The eight-franchise T20 league was launched by a furious Indian cricket board [BCCI] in reaction to the creation of the ICL by Subhash Chandra, owner of Zee-TV - one of India's biggest broadcast companies. Now, while Kapil feigns indifference, on Mumbai's waterfront Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta and billionaires including Vijay Mallya, owner of the Force India Formula One team, are haggling over some of sport's most elite flesh.
By the day's end, 78 of the world's best cricketers have passed under the gavel of Richard Madley - an English auctioneer more used to punting cricket bats - and Khan and Zinta's press conference has added a further sprinkle of stardust.
Kapil's successful leadership of India's 1983 World Cup campaign did much to ignite the love of the shortened game on the subcontinent that began the shift of power in world cricket to this region. Stadiums sold out for one-day internationals, bringing massive revenues in advertising and sponsorship. When Kapil's countryman Jagmohan Dalmiya became president of the ICC in 1997, cricket's new order was firmly in place. It is the fruits of this transformation that would seem to have been fully realised on Wednesday.
But now Kapil has fallen out seriously with the BCCI. Once accused of match-fixing by an Indian board official, Kapil had the pension he receives as a former India player suspended because of his involvement with the ICL, whose players are banned from representing India.
Despite all the acrimony, Kapil cannot hide his fascination with the waterfront action. 'I don't know what's going on down there with this auction,' he says with a grin. 'I just cannot tell.'
What Kapil and the watching millions witnessed was a day that changed cricket forever - one that could also have serious implications for the future of sport in general over the coming decades. Attended by a media scrum described by one BBC correspondent as more frantic than the day Britain decided to go to war in Iraq, the auction raised enough for £21m to go straight into the players' pockets for a maximum of 44 days' work. India's captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, was the biggest winner, pulling in around £750,000. Sri Lanka's Chamara Silva, the least valued player, still earned himself £50,000 despite having played only nine Tests.
All this was for a competition that, until it actually begins on 18 April, no one can know exactly how it will be received by its core constituency, the Indian public. But Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner who masterminded proceedings, is more than confident.
'Oh, I'm extremely happy,' he tells Observer Sport when the media frenzy has moved on to issues such as which teams have been the shrewdest spenders - Hyderabad with Adam Gilchrist and company, apparently - and a rumour concerning clandestine meetings between Modi and some of the franchise owners on the eve of the bid.
'It has gone beyond our expectations and is so exciting to see. We have the right building blocks of the right bodies, right format and right players,' says Modi, a man of considerable private means having been born to a wealthy family. 'The next step is to make the competition a good experience for the fans. We researched it properly and studied the right models and structures and got powerful people to buy into it.'
Modi is also the BCCI's vice-president and marketing director and his delight is hardly surprising when considering the sums he has engineered. The broadcast rights were sold for $918 million (£450m) for the next 10 years.
In its 44 days of competition - run on a league format - there will be 59 IPL games. Each yearly instalment of six weeks, then, has gone for around £45m.
The current four-year deal for the total broadcast rights to English football's Premier League was £2.7bn, around four times what Modi pulled off. But the football season is six times longer than an edition of the IPL. And, it took the Premier League 15 years to build those figures.
Suddenly America and Europe, sport's traditional powerbase, have a new challenger. 'We studied the English Premier League, the European football leagues and American sports,' says Modi, 44, who spent much of his youth in the US learning about sports marketing, 'and took a piece from each. But the IPL is based primarily on the English Premier League. Except the EPL does not have player caps [limits on wages and transfer fees], which has advantages and disadvantages. The IPL does. We're starting a new product and wanted to ensure that all teams are strong, and not too small beforehand.
'Sure, some players will earn a lot. And some not so much. But there are opportunities for local players and youngsters will get their chance,' he says of a rule that dictates no more than four overseas players can play in a match. 'In [this kind of weighting] there is a similarity to how the National Football League organises itself. But the EPL is gigantic, that's our model - we want to have a solid footing over the next three years.'
Modi is confident all of the IPL investors will be rewarded. While Sony, the broadcaster, has to sell a 10-second advertising slot for £3,250 to recoup its outlay, Modi calmly states: 'I hope the club owners can make money from this.' These are led by Khan and Zinta, who, respectively, part-own Team Kolkata and Team Mohali. The remaining six franchises are controlled by an array of Indian corporations, and the tycoon Mallya, who also owns the I-League football clubs, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.
'The owners receive 80 per cent of the broadcast rights, 60 per cent of sponsorship, 87.5 per cent of merchandising and all of the gate receipts and team sponsorship amounts,' Modi says.
The total paid for the franchises was $756m, which is about £45m a team. A low-ranking Premier League club free of debt would probably be satisfied with that valuation, which Modi has created in less than 12 months. He is certainly candid about the ambition of the IPL. 'Yes, the English Premier League earns lots of money,' he says. 'But there are over a billion people in India and then there are all the other cricket lovers around the world.
'Our objective is to be bigger than the EPL, definitely. This is not just about the Asian community in India or elsewhere. My son's favourite football team is Manchester United, so why could this not happen the other way round?'
On Friday, The Times of India offered one answer. 'Harbhajan Singh has enjoyed almost demi-god status while playing in Mohali,' it said, 'but will the local crowd be supportive if he dismisses Yuvraj Singh while playing for Mumbai?'
Alongside accusations of greed, it is this claim of a lack of tradition that forms the main argument against Modi and the IPL - that an artificially created contest between players whose loyalty is only to their immense salary will be reflected in disappointing crowds unsure which local hero to cheer.
Modi, though, hardly seems to care. In a further indication of just who now holds the power in world cricket, he was dismissive of the ICC's proposal, tabled on Thursday, that an official window for the IPL should not be created in the international calendar. This is due to be ratified next month, but Modi is not moved. 'I'm not concerned. Most countries' season ends in March, apart from the West Indies and England,' he says, apparently dismissive that English cricket's pre-season will prevent Kevin Pietersen and company playing unless an official window is created. 'Our time of year [for the IPL] has traditionally been free, it is a natural window - and I'm sure that will stay.'
And what of the ICL, which was created when Chandra's offer for the rights to India's internationals was refused by the BCCI? 'The ICL was created for profit, and for television. Not for fans,' Modi says. 'It has no infrastructure [all of the first competition was played at a single ground], whereas the BCCI owns stadiums all over India. It is owned by one man who can only do so much. We have eight owners who will want to win all the time.'
So what, then, are the true implications of this past week in India? If the power of world cricket is now firmly in India and in the hands of tycoons and corporations, what of the future for the game's traditional forms? Asked if success for the IPL might lead to 'Test' matches between the franchises, Modi does not completely rule out the prospect. 'We will try and play exhibition matches. But the IPL is a Twenty20 competition. So I don't think so,' he says.
Yet what is revealing is that Modi now considers himself to be in a position where he can seriously consider such a question, which should surely be enough to send a shudder through the ICC.
It is inevitably reminiscent of Kerry Packer's breakaway World Series Cricket in the 1970s - the first important wresting of power from the old guard. Brett Lee, who cost Mohali around £400,000, agrees. 'If we look back in 10 years this is going to be a massive landmark - like when the World Series started,' the Australia fast bowler says.
Will it, then, ultimately be the end of the ICC? 'It is not part of their mandate. Theirs is international cricket, this is a domestic league,' Modi says, again seeming to rule nothing out. 'India didn't have a good domestic competition with international players. This will.'
Kapil Dev is not sure. 'One should first [want to] represent one's country because that is the most important thing. I would never want to see the boys come out and say, "I play for my club, not my country."
'The thing now is to watch. What will happen over the next five years?' he says, pointing at the television. 'This could be the end of international cricket. Who actually, really, knows?'
Cash-rich IPL good for cricket: Richards
Melbourne: Welcoming the cash-rich Indian Premier League, West Indian great Vivian Richards said the huge money associated with the venture would do a world of good to cricket.
The original master blaster said there was nothing wrong in bringing a lot of money to the game as it would be beneficial for the players.
"If it can be arranged I don't think anything would be wrong with that. Others, establishment-wise, see these things sometimes as threatening but I think it must be discussed," Richards was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"We have long complained about the finances in cricket. I think it's great for those guys, now that they know financially they can secure their future," he said.
Richards, one of 14 legends on the payroll of Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford and a board member and ambassador for Stanford 2020 in the Caribbean, said with its money power IPL would help Twenty20 cricket grow bigger.
"The sort of money that was attached to cricket did run a lot of people away to try other careers, but now that we have the perks there will be a lot more cricketers trying to hit that jackpot.
"So long as the Indians are going to be on board with the mass audience and power they have in world cricket, it is a great endorsement for the Twenty20 form to go further."
A big fan of Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds, Richards said players of his calibre would enhance the glamour of IPL.
"I am a great fan of Andrew Symonds, his fielding and the way in which he plays his cricket, with that sort of aggression. Having people like that on board is certainly going to add to the (IPL) razzmatazz," he said.
The original master blaster said there was nothing wrong in bringing a lot of money to the game as it would be beneficial for the players.
"If it can be arranged I don't think anything would be wrong with that. Others, establishment-wise, see these things sometimes as threatening but I think it must be discussed," Richards was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"We have long complained about the finances in cricket. I think it's great for those guys, now that they know financially they can secure their future," he said.
Richards, one of 14 legends on the payroll of Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford and a board member and ambassador for Stanford 2020 in the Caribbean, said with its money power IPL would help Twenty20 cricket grow bigger.
"The sort of money that was attached to cricket did run a lot of people away to try other careers, but now that we have the perks there will be a lot more cricketers trying to hit that jackpot.
"So long as the Indians are going to be on board with the mass audience and power they have in world cricket, it is a great endorsement for the Twenty20 form to go further."
A big fan of Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds, Richards said players of his calibre would enhance the glamour of IPL.
"I am a great fan of Andrew Symonds, his fielding and the way in which he plays his cricket, with that sort of aggression. Having people like that on board is certainly going to add to the (IPL) razzmatazz," he said.
Hyderabad, Chennai IPL's dream teams
New Delhi: The players have been bought, but the big question is who has got the right ones. Powered with the findings of an opinion poll on Cricketnext.com, here's the expert view on who have the best team to go all the way in the IPL.
After a day of hectic buying and selling, everyone is wondering who got the mix right? That may not be easy to answer but the experts reckon some have no chance at all after the players they picked up, like team Jaipur.
"Serendipity. Whatever that lands up on the auction day. We might have picked out a few players and targetted them, but during the course of the auction, if you have been a little off target, there is a possibility of going off balance," VB Chandrasekhar, former India cricketer and selector of the Chennai Super Kings, told CNN-IBN on Saturday's Cricket 360.
Just one per cent of Cricketnext users thought Jaipur would win the league. Bangalore faired a touch better with four per cent, and Mumbai was at nine per cent.
"When you have these iconic players with you, and you pay them loads of money, I think it will call for true professionalism in them, and you have got to make sure that they win," notes former India speedster Javagal Srinath.
But one team that gets the accolades from nearly everyone is Hyderabad, who have Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, VVS Laxman and Rohit Sharma among others to call on.
"They have got the best balance because they have got players who can win the game single-handedly," explains former India spinner Maninder Singh.
Cricketnext users tend to agree. Hyderabad, along with Chennai fetched the highest number of votes with 26 per cent.
And the mastermind behind Chennai's selection is in no doubt they have hit the nail on the head. "I would tend to think that it's all ours already," Chandrashekhar beams.
What of the dark horses? Shahrukh Khan's Kolkata and Priety Zinta's Mohali are pretty close; 17 per cent go for Kolkata while 13 per cent back Preity's Mohali. Delhi managed just two per cent.
After a day of hectic buying and selling, everyone is wondering who got the mix right? That may not be easy to answer but the experts reckon some have no chance at all after the players they picked up, like team Jaipur.
"Serendipity. Whatever that lands up on the auction day. We might have picked out a few players and targetted them, but during the course of the auction, if you have been a little off target, there is a possibility of going off balance," VB Chandrasekhar, former India cricketer and selector of the Chennai Super Kings, told CNN-IBN on Saturday's Cricket 360.
Just one per cent of Cricketnext users thought Jaipur would win the league. Bangalore faired a touch better with four per cent, and Mumbai was at nine per cent.
"When you have these iconic players with you, and you pay them loads of money, I think it will call for true professionalism in them, and you have got to make sure that they win," notes former India speedster Javagal Srinath.
But one team that gets the accolades from nearly everyone is Hyderabad, who have Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, VVS Laxman and Rohit Sharma among others to call on.
"They have got the best balance because they have got players who can win the game single-handedly," explains former India spinner Maninder Singh.
Cricketnext users tend to agree. Hyderabad, along with Chennai fetched the highest number of votes with 26 per cent.
And the mastermind behind Chennai's selection is in no doubt they have hit the nail on the head. "I would tend to think that it's all ours already," Chandrashekhar beams.
What of the dark horses? Shahrukh Khan's Kolkata and Priety Zinta's Mohali are pretty close; 17 per cent go for Kolkata while 13 per cent back Preity's Mohali. Delhi managed just two per cent.
IPL backout cost Johnson $5,00,000: Modi
Melbourne: Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson's decision to miss the Indian Premier League (IPL) had cost him $500,000, a report has claimed.
While several of Australia's top cricketers joined the lucrative league, Michael Clarke, Johnson and gloveman Brad Haddin decided to stay away from it to focus on their international careers.
The Sunday Telegraph claimed that Clarke stood to earn $800,000 a season had he entered the IPL bidding frenzy.
It quoted IPL chairman Lalit Modi as saying that Johnson would have commanded enormous interest during the February 20 auction in Mumbai, considering that pacer Brett Lee was bought by Mohali team for a staggering $900,000.
"It is very difficult to put a price on him (Johnson) but if you look at the top bowlers, they went for big money," Modi was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
"Johnson would have easily gone for 400-500 (thousand dollars a season), easily. I don't think Johnson would have been left on the market.
"You look at Brett Lee, he got over $900,000 ... someone like Johnson would have been a hot pick," Modi added.
Five Test stars — Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds, Brett Lee, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey — stand to pocket $3.375 million collectively by playing in the inaugural 44-day IPL tournament from April 18.
But coach Tim Nielsen said the big-name posse could miss the IPL bus in the first year if the Australians were given the green light to tour Pakistan.
The revised tour of Pakistan is scheduled between March 29 and April 27, before Australia play their first match of the West Indies tour on May 16.
While several of Australia's top cricketers joined the lucrative league, Michael Clarke, Johnson and gloveman Brad Haddin decided to stay away from it to focus on their international careers.
The Sunday Telegraph claimed that Clarke stood to earn $800,000 a season had he entered the IPL bidding frenzy.
It quoted IPL chairman Lalit Modi as saying that Johnson would have commanded enormous interest during the February 20 auction in Mumbai, considering that pacer Brett Lee was bought by Mohali team for a staggering $900,000.
"It is very difficult to put a price on him (Johnson) but if you look at the top bowlers, they went for big money," Modi was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
"Johnson would have easily gone for 400-500 (thousand dollars a season), easily. I don't think Johnson would have been left on the market.
"You look at Brett Lee, he got over $900,000 ... someone like Johnson would have been a hot pick," Modi added.
Five Test stars — Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds, Brett Lee, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey — stand to pocket $3.375 million collectively by playing in the inaugural 44-day IPL tournament from April 18.
But coach Tim Nielsen said the big-name posse could miss the IPL bus in the first year if the Australians were given the green light to tour Pakistan.
The revised tour of Pakistan is scheduled between March 29 and April 27, before Australia play their first match of the West Indies tour on May 16.
Is this cricket, or cattle fair?
Is this cricket, or cattle fair?
By K. Datta For all those complaints about taxing, unimaginatively planned tour schedules season after season you would have thought our suffering cricketers with tired minds and bodies needed a break for rest and recuperation. But seeing the excitement surrounding the players' auction for the Indian Premier League (IPL) they appear to be lying. Actually, all that these poor exploited men were doing was asking for more 'tamasha' cricket with more money. Show them the money and they'll forget all about being overburdened with cricket and even injuries. Forgotten is all that talk about too much cricket. If there are any grouses now, they are only about how come X has fetched a lower price than Y in spite of enjoying a superior rating as a player, or the windfall that has come the way of a boy still to complete his schooling. Money has a way of stoking the baser feelings. To all those accustomed to old, more dignifying times in cricket, the first ever auction of cricketers, some of them as good and famous as they can get, looked more akin to a cattle fair in Pushkar or Nagaour. The only difference was the cricket auction was a glamorous affair held in front of TV cameras in five-star ambience. Money is the name of the game. The Indian cricket board has added several hundred crores to its overflowing coffers. Corporates and individuals who can afford it all have been lured into the new game in the hope of raking in profits from their investment. It is even threatening to get addictive, as actor Shah Rukh Khan, who owns the Kolkata franchise, has admitted on record. As for those hitherto overworked players, they seem to have, expectedly, found a fresh enthusiasm and energy. They are now willing to punish their bodies in the harsh Indian summer. But coming to think of it, could there have been an IPL had there been no breakaway or "rebel" Indian Cricket League (ICL), a venture that came into being following the failure of a television channel to secure telecast rights from the cricket board. The earlier exodus to the ICL has been put into the shade by the glare of publicity surrounding the IPL, which is the official thing. The ICL claimed to have opened new vistas for cricketers. The IPL has offered even better moneymaking avenues and attracted more players to its fold. There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when a cricketer lucky enough to be selected to play a Test match would be happy to go home richer by Rs.250 at the end of the five-day game. Fifty-over one-day internationals and Twenty20 matches were then still a long way off. Telecasts were unheard of. When TV at last came to India the state-run Doordarshan enjoyed a monopoly to start with. It was with the appearance of private channels that the face of cricket changed. Star cricketers began endorsing products and the cricket board began exploiting the commercial opportunities to swell its coffers. Money, money, and more money. It became a fashion to describe cricket, first popularised by radio commentary and then by TV, as a religion of the Indian masses. Quite a misleading generalization this, as most generalizations are. Where do all those masses disappear during Ranji Trophy or Duleep Trophy, although it is in these domestic tournaments that our cricketers endeavour to excel in order to earn the India cap? But back to the IPL. One would have liked to see Ishant Sharma, brought up on the cricket grounds of Delhi , bowl his 150kmph plus deliveries for his own city team, Delhi Daredevils. But he was bought by Shah Rukh Khan, a Delhi boy himself, for Kolkata and will be bowling superfast to bag the wickets of fellow Dilliwalas like Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir now that he has been paid Rs.3.9 crore. Hardly a way to promote city loyalties. Let's wait and see. There may be surprises in store. You may see boys like Pradeep Sangwan, busy playing for India in the Under-19 World Cup when the IPL auction was held, and others like him grabbing new opportunities. The IPL, and even the ICL, are being seen as events opening new career opportunities for young men. Players nursing grouses over the prices at the auction will find their own ways of seeking justice. Like it or not, the face of cricket has changed irretrievably with each player carrying a price on his head and TV channels and other stake holders coming out with innovative methods to reap profits. But even in this new world of entertainment there are a few who have put country before the lure of a quick million or two. Like Australia 's Michael Clarke whose decision to give the IPL a miss is reported to have gone down well in his country.
By K. Datta For all those complaints about taxing, unimaginatively planned tour schedules season after season you would have thought our suffering cricketers with tired minds and bodies needed a break for rest and recuperation. But seeing the excitement surrounding the players' auction for the Indian Premier League (IPL) they appear to be lying. Actually, all that these poor exploited men were doing was asking for more 'tamasha' cricket with more money. Show them the money and they'll forget all about being overburdened with cricket and even injuries. Forgotten is all that talk about too much cricket. If there are any grouses now, they are only about how come X has fetched a lower price than Y in spite of enjoying a superior rating as a player, or the windfall that has come the way of a boy still to complete his schooling. Money has a way of stoking the baser feelings. To all those accustomed to old, more dignifying times in cricket, the first ever auction of cricketers, some of them as good and famous as they can get, looked more akin to a cattle fair in Pushkar or Nagaour. The only difference was the cricket auction was a glamorous affair held in front of TV cameras in five-star ambience. Money is the name of the game. The Indian cricket board has added several hundred crores to its overflowing coffers. Corporates and individuals who can afford it all have been lured into the new game in the hope of raking in profits from their investment. It is even threatening to get addictive, as actor Shah Rukh Khan, who owns the Kolkata franchise, has admitted on record. As for those hitherto overworked players, they seem to have, expectedly, found a fresh enthusiasm and energy. They are now willing to punish their bodies in the harsh Indian summer. But coming to think of it, could there have been an IPL had there been no breakaway or "rebel" Indian Cricket League (ICL), a venture that came into being following the failure of a television channel to secure telecast rights from the cricket board. The earlier exodus to the ICL has been put into the shade by the glare of publicity surrounding the IPL, which is the official thing. The ICL claimed to have opened new vistas for cricketers. The IPL has offered even better moneymaking avenues and attracted more players to its fold. There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when a cricketer lucky enough to be selected to play a Test match would be happy to go home richer by Rs.250 at the end of the five-day game. Fifty-over one-day internationals and Twenty20 matches were then still a long way off. Telecasts were unheard of. When TV at last came to India the state-run Doordarshan enjoyed a monopoly to start with. It was with the appearance of private channels that the face of cricket changed. Star cricketers began endorsing products and the cricket board began exploiting the commercial opportunities to swell its coffers. Money, money, and more money. It became a fashion to describe cricket, first popularised by radio commentary and then by TV, as a religion of the Indian masses. Quite a misleading generalization this, as most generalizations are. Where do all those masses disappear during Ranji Trophy or Duleep Trophy, although it is in these domestic tournaments that our cricketers endeavour to excel in order to earn the India cap? But back to the IPL. One would have liked to see Ishant Sharma, brought up on the cricket grounds of Delhi , bowl his 150kmph plus deliveries for his own city team, Delhi Daredevils. But he was bought by Shah Rukh Khan, a Delhi boy himself, for Kolkata and will be bowling superfast to bag the wickets of fellow Dilliwalas like Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir now that he has been paid Rs.3.9 crore. Hardly a way to promote city loyalties. Let's wait and see. There may be surprises in store. You may see boys like Pradeep Sangwan, busy playing for India in the Under-19 World Cup when the IPL auction was held, and others like him grabbing new opportunities. The IPL, and even the ICL, are being seen as events opening new career opportunities for young men. Players nursing grouses over the prices at the auction will find their own ways of seeking justice. Like it or not, the face of cricket has changed irretrievably with each player carrying a price on his head and TV channels and other stake holders coming out with innovative methods to reap profits. But even in this new world of entertainment there are a few who have put country before the lure of a quick million or two. Like Australia 's Michael Clarke whose decision to give the IPL a miss is reported to have gone down well in his country.
Justin Langer says no to IPL
PERTH, February 23: Former Australian opener Justin Langer has turned his back on the inaugural Twenty20 Indian Premier League, opting to honour a prior commitment to English county side Somerset. Langer fetched $218,000 from the Jaipur franchise in Wednesday's player auction, but The West Australian newspaper said on Saturday that he declined the offer. In rejecting Jaipur's offer, Langer said he feared for the direction of world cricket, concerned that the riches of the IPL would change the priorities of some players. "Before the auction, I don't know if many people anticipated what an issue these massive player payments would become," Langer said, echoing the fears of Australian captain Ricky Ponting. "But when you see how much money is being paid out, I think we have to be very careful to protect the integrity of the game. "A few days ago, playing for Australia would have been the main goal for just about every young player in the country. "Now that might not be the case." Langer warned other players not to put quick cash ahead of personal achievement. "When you go to your grave, people will remember what you did with your life rather than how much money you made," he said. Langer's comments came as pressure mounted on the International Cricket Council to create a gap in the international scheduling for the annual IPL tournament, which is generating plenty of controversy in Australia. Some of Australia's premier batsmen have appeared somewhat distracted during the current One-day tri-series, over which the ongoing IPL machinations have cast a huge shadow. Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds have all been struggling for touch, with soon to be retired wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist admitting that off-field issues, including the IPL, are taking their toll. Australian hopeful David Hussey, the younger brother of Test star Mike Hussey, was snapped up for $740,000 by IPL side Calcutta on Wednesday, just hours after blazing a One-day hundred for Victoria. But he admitted to the Herald Sun that he was distracted by the the IPL talk before he went out to bat. "I was pretty distracted and then Shippy (coach Greg Shipperd) pulled me aside and said 'Hey, it's a big game, this, get focused and get some runs. National selection could await, so get your mind on the job'," he said.
Friday, February 22, 2008
IPL Chennai Super Kings
IPL Chennai Super Kings
2/22/2008 4:03:34 PM
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| India Cements Ltd. IPL team Chennai Super Kings |
History was made on Wednesday (February 20) as cricket's biggest names were auctioned today at Hilton Towers, Mumbai. A total of 79 players both Indian and international went under the hammer for the multi-million dollar Indian Premier League. MS Dhoni (India) US$ 1,500,000 (Rs 6cr) 14 295 73 134.09 - Muthaih Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) US$ 600,000 (Rs 2.4cr) 8 16 9 160.00 17 Matthew Hayden (Australia) US$ 375,000 (Rs 1.5cr) 9 308 73 143.92 - Jacob Oram (New Zealand) US$ 675,000 (Rs 2.7cr) 17 407 66 153.00 6 Stephen Fleming (New Zealand) US$ 350,000 (Rs 1.4cr) 36 816 64 123.26 - Parthiv Patel (India) US$ 320,000 (Rs 1.3cr) 9 159 57 134.74 - Albie Morkel (South Africa) US$ 675,000 (Rs 2.7cr) 34 478 56 132.40 22 Joginder Sharma (India) US$ 225,000 (Rs 90lac) 12 73 35 132.72 10 Michael Hussey (Australia)
One of the eight teams which feature in this extravagent form of the game is CHENNAI SUPER KINGS
Owner: The team is owned by India Cements and have acquired ther rights for the team for the next 10 years. The team has been named Super Kings. The name of the team comes from the aim to salute the golden era of the state. Former veteran cricketer Krish Srikanth is the brand ambassador of the team. India Cements brought the team for an amount of US$ 91 million (Rs 364 crore). An amount of US$ 5,925,000 was spent to buy players for the team from the auction held on February 20, 2008.
About owner: N Srinivasan is the Vice-chairman and Managing Director of the India Cements company which is one of the biggest south Indian company with turnovers well over 1,000 crores. They span into the areas of Cement, Sugar, trading and Finance.
Players: The most spokent about player -- MS Dhoni was bagged by Chennai for a whopping Rs 6cr. Alongside with him will be players of the likes of Muralitharan, Jacob Oram, Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina.
Current Squad
Player
Price
T20 Statistics
Mat Runs HS SR Wkts
Suresh Raina (India)
US$ 650,000 (Rs 2.6cr)
1 3 3 75.00 -
Makhaya Ntini (South Africa)
US$ 200,000 (Rs 80lac)
16 16 6 100.00 11
US$ 350,000 (Rs 1.4cr)
20 484 88 123.78 -
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