Catch IPL

Lets start guessing who will be the next ipl winner…. No idea??
Let me give a clue….
who was the winner of 1st Edition of IPL?
Rajasthan Royals.
Who was the winner of the second Edition of IPL?
Deccan Chargers.

And if you have noticed there is something common in both the teams…..there captain was retired Australian

Get it??

Still have a Doubt??

Ok let me make it clear….

The next winner of IPL would be the team led by an retired Australian………;)

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Pakistani all-rounder Abdul Razzaq, who recently parted ways with the Indian Cricket League (ICL), is set to be the first cricketer to begin a new innings for his national team. But for ICL, the game may be all but over.
Promoted by India’s largest listed media group, Zee Entertainment Network, ICL officials are, however, confident that the next edition of the tournament will take place in November.

“We are not shutting shop. The League is on,” says a senior executive of ICL, which launched its ‘rebel’ cricket tournament — so called because it has been unable to gain recognition from the game’s world governing body, the International Cricket Council — in December 2007.

But the ground realities are different. ICL has already lost 79 players, or nearly 70 per cent, of its overall pool of players and over a dozen support staff to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which gave them amnesty.

Another 15 players have sent their request to the ICL’s top brass, seeking to be released from their contracts so that they can return to official cricket. That leaves just about a dozen, largely unknown, local players. Even in the best of times, ICL players were unable to attract eyeballs on Ten Sports and Zee Sports, the channels which telecast the matches.

The matches delivered ratings of less than 1 per cent as opposed to average ratings of 4 for the two seasons of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Media experts say it’s highly unlikely that advertisers would be interested in sponsoring a tournament which won’t even have yesterday’s stars such as Brian Lara, Inzamam-Ul-Haq or even Rohan Gavaskar — all of whom have been released by ICL.

The financials of the rebel league do not hold much promise either. If industry sources are to be believed, ICL may have invested close to Rs 180-190 crore since 2007 and got a return of just around Rs 35-40 crore. Of these investments, around Rs 20-25 crore went towards creating the infrastructure like stadium and related facilities in Panchkula near Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

A media consultant who tracks cricket said while infrastructure accounted for Rs 60-70 crore, production, broadcast, distribution and marketing of the event cost Rs 30-35 crore. The cost of the players worked out to another Rs 10 crore.

ICL executives declined to comment on the financials.

Compared with this, the IPL has been minting money since its launch in early 2008. Its telecast rights for the next nine years have been sold at Rs 8,200 crore to Multi Screen Media (Sony) and World Sport Group. As a television property, it has managed to generate over Rs 1,000 crore from on-air sponsporships and advertisements between IPL 1 and IPL 2, according to sources in media agencies. Besides, IPL teams are owned by industry leaders like Mukesh Ambani, Vijay Mallya, Shahrukh Khan and Ness Wadia, among others.

On the exodus of players, a senior Essel Group executive, however, said getting new players was not a problem and ICL would recruit fresh talent as and when the need arose. ICL still has 40-50 players on its roster.

The executive said it was significant that former Indian skipper Kapil Dev, who is the chairman of ICL’s Executive Board, and former Test wicketkeeper and Chief Selector Kiran More have still not severed their relations with the League.

But the going will still be tough. Former India all-rounder and coach Madan Lal, for example, told Reuters in an interview that he had quit as an ICL coach and felt the league could collapse due to a lack of matches and official approval.

“If you don’t play for six months, it is not good. And if you can’t play any other form of (official) cricket, how long can you just keep doing physical fitness?”

Apart from players, ICL also had a team of around 150-plus officials in various departments like marketing, broadcasting, events and finance, among others. Most of them have been either asked to go or have been absorbed internally in other arms of the Essel group, says a former ICL executive, requesting anonymity.

The executive said ICL had access to at least three cricket stadiums in Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad in which it organised its tournaments — including ICL20-20 World Series, ICL 20-20 Domestic tournament and ICL 20-20 Indian championships — between December 2007 and February 2009. It hopes to use these for the next edition of ICL as well.

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I must admit that I have been thoroughly impressed with all the associate nations in this tournament, and their improvement is a perfect advertisement for the global T20 brand. Ireland is one of the most improving associate sides, and they seem to have come on in leaps and bounds since the 2007 World Cup. They have done extremely well to have qualified for the next stage in the world T20, and would love to pull of another shock, although extremely unlikely win over India.

India’s performance the other night against Bangladesh was reminiscent of their supreme ability as a T20 cricket team. All the young Indian players are now so well accustomed to the T20 format, and have benefited immensely from the cricketing exposure in the IPL.

This Indian side seems to have the perfect balance, with stroke-makers and audacious hitters like Virender Sehwag and Yusuf Pathan, as well as the finesse of Gautam Gambhir to top it up. I would like to see Suresh Raina bat at No 3, as that is where he showed what a quality player he is in the IPL. He batted too low against Bangladesh, and an opportunity at No 3 against the Irish will be ideal.

The team will undoubtedly look for another convincing win against Ireland on Wednesday, and India seems to be spoilt for choice in all departments of the game. Their bowling unit is one of the strongest in the competition, and Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha will undoubtedly give the Irish batsman quite a few problems. The pace attack looks quite formidable as well.

There is absoluely no doubt that the Aussies have been completely outplayed in this world T20 edition, as both Sri Lanka and the West Indies defeated them with minimal fuss. I was particularly impressed with Chris Gayle’s onslaught, which had all the bowlers running for cover.

I’m really excited about watching Chris Gayle bat today after that blistering knock, and the Sri Lankan bowlers will have to maintain an immaculate line against him early on.

For Sri Lanka, Dilshan seems to be carrying off from where he left in the IPL, and he may have another gem up his sleeve. With both teams already through, we may see some fearless cricket and a thoroughly exciting game awaits us.

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The now $2 billion Indian Premier League property has come through an economic slowdown and other challenges with higher valuations for stakeholders.

Despite higher costs and smaller gate revenues, franchises will, on an average, take home about Rs 46 crore each, estimate insiders.

“I can’t share a figure on earnings. We are closing our books right now. But what’s important is what has come out of this IPL and what it has done for the franchises.

“IPL is now a far more global brand, and has acquired fans from not just South Africa but other parts of Africa too, and England with the English players participating this time. It’s brought value for franchises and sponsors who now realise it is not a domestic tournament and is a bigger brand today,” says Mr Sundar Raman, CEO, IPL.

At least two teams are believed to be looking out for investors. “Given the shift from innovation in 2008 to an established brand in 2009, strategic investors and PE players have shown interest in taking a stake in IPL,” said Mr Rajesh Jain, Head ICE practice, KPMG.

Meanwhile, the IPL is developing new revenue streams in licensing and hospitality. The next trading window, player regulations and introduction, whether by auction or draft, of the 79 rebel league players, once a part of the Essel Group’s Indian Cricket League, will be announced soon. Next year, IPL will make an early start, in March possibly, before the World T20 Championship in April 2010.

“Gate revenue is going to be lower, but we will be compensating the franchises for that,” said Mr Raman. “It’s understandable: the lowest stadium capacity in India is 20,000 while the highest in South Africa is 30,000. Kimberley was only 8,000 seats, the stadium at Bloemfontein seats 15-16,000 while capacity at Ferozeshah Kotla is 45,000, and at Eden Gardens it’s nearly a lakh,” he added. Each franchise could get another Rs 10-12 crore compensating last year’s gate earnings.

“We would have loved to be profitable in year one. While we have had stronger sponsorship revenues, we are dependent on IPL to finalise all modalities — such as how much we will be billed for, how gate revenues will be shared — of hosting it in South Africa,” said Mr Amrit Mathur, COO, Delhi Daredevils.

“We have no control over team expenses. As far as we are concerned eight of the eight teams should be profitable,” said Mr Raman.

Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra’s 12 per cent buy in Rajasthan Royals before IPL-2 took the team’s valuation to $140 million (Rs 660 crore) before the tournament had taken place; that is nearly double the price at which the team was bought.

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More than a decade ago and before she became a soap queen, Ekta Kapoor began her career as television producer with a supernatural show called Mano Ya Na Mano. It did not fair well so Ekta moved on to comedy with Hum Paanch, which set the ball rolling for her journey to success. While her first daily soap for DD, Itihaas, made her production company buzz with a lot of activity, by now everyone knows what happened post-July 2000 when Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi became a late prime-time rage. It changed everything for television as well as Ekta. The struggling producer became a television Czarina. However, television business is cyclical and the law of averages spares no one, not even the queen. Ekta’s success formula lost its magic and she had to look elsewhere for inspiration.
Probably she revisited her early days as producer which also includes a weekend horror-cum-paranormal show called Kya Haadsa Kya Haqeeqat and thought of revisiting the genre. Ironically, while till a year ago Ekta never got tired of talking about the magic of her saas-bahu formula, today she is quite upbeat about her supernatural show Koi Aane Ko Hai which was launched as a weekend bi-weekly three months ago on Colors. The show got a decent opening and thanks to its steady performance, it’s being made into a tri-weekly from this week. Planned as a mini-series of 52 episodes spread over six months, each story runs into 10 to 12 episodes and deals with real-life cases of supernatural stories and also contains elements of soap and family drama. Having done with two stories, the show enters the third this week. Called Gulmohar, it deals with the travails of a young girl called Niharika who is possessed by a spirit when she visits her grandparents’ village in Bhavnagar.

Ekta says that she did not watch IPL but knows for sure that Lalit Modi’s cricket carnival in South Africa affected her show’s ratings. She waited for the IPL to get over to launch Niharika. “I love this show. Of course a thinking mind will question the paranormal but the best thing about the supernatural is to make people believe what they disbelieve,” she observes. Ekta is indeed a master in the game of making some of the most unbelievable things credible. She did it for nearly eight years without resorting to paranormal. Today she is doing it with the help of the supernatural to score a few TRP points. She is perfectly happy with the show’s ratings which hover between 2 and 3 TVRs .

She has restructured the functioning of her production company. Sources in Balaji say that while earlier all shows were looked after by a GM with a handful of creative heads looking after two or three shows, today it is a different case with a vice-president as a overall supreme command and each show under one creative head. “There is better accountability now,” say sources. Adds Ekta, “I have a fabulous team to take care of all creative and production decisions.” However, she declines to give out any details about Balaji’s future plans and forthcoming shows. “I have three shows coming in the near future. But I won’t talk about them and restrict myself to only Koi Aane Ko Hai,” she says. Quiz her whether it’s easier making a paranormal show as compared to a daily soap, Ekta says that the two genres require different kind of storytelling technique. “Nothing is easy. Daily soaps are more narrative and character-driven but paranormal is more challenging because it requires better technical treatment,” she signs off.

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More than a decade ago and before she became a soap queen, Ekta Kapoor began her career as television producer with a supernatural show called Mano Ya Na Mano. It did not fair well so Ekta moved on to comedy with Hum Paanch, which set the ball rolling for her journey to success. While her first daily soap for DD, Itihaas, made her production company buzz with a lot of activity, by now everyone knows what happened post-July 2000 when Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi became a late prime-time rage. It changed everything for television as well as Ekta. The struggling producer became a television Czarina. However, television business is cyclical and the law of averages spares no one, not even the queen. Ekta’s success formula lost its magic and she had to look elsewhere for inspiration.
Probably she revisited her early days as producer which also includes a weekend horror-cum-paranormal show called Kya Haadsa Kya Haqeeqat and thought of revisiting the genre. Ironically, while till a year ago Ekta never got tired of talking about the magic of her saas-bahu formula, today she is quite upbeat about her supernatural show Koi Aane Ko Hai which was launched as a weekend bi-weekly three months ago on Colors. The show got a decent opening and thanks to its steady performance, it’s being made into a tri-weekly from this week. Planned as a mini-series of 52 episodes spread over six months, each story runs into 10 to 12 episodes and deals with real-life cases of supernatural stories and also contains elements of soap and family drama. Having done with two stories, the show enters the third this week. Called Gulmohar, it deals with the travails of a young girl called Niharika who is possessed by a spirit when she visits her grandparents’ village in Bhavnagar.

Ekta says that she did not watch IPL but knows for sure that Lalit Modi’s cricket carnival in South Africa affected her show’s ratings. She waited for the IPL to get over to launch Niharika. “I love this show. Of course a thinking mind will question the paranormal but the best thing about the supernatural is to make people believe what they disbelieve,” she observes. Ekta is indeed a master in the game of making some of the most unbelievable things credible. She did it for nearly eight years without resorting to paranormal. Today she is doing it with the help of the supernatural to score a few TRP points. She is perfectly happy with the show’s ratings which hover between 2 and 3 TVRs .

She has restructured the functioning of her production company. Sources in Balaji say that while earlier all shows were looked after by a GM with a handful of creative heads looking after two or three shows, today it is a different case with a vice-president as a overall supreme command and each show under one creative head. “There is better accountability now,” say sources. Adds Ekta, “I have a fabulous team to take care of all creative and production decisions.” However, she declines to give out any details about Balaji’s future plans and forthcoming shows. “I have three shows coming in the near future. But I won’t talk about them and restrict myself to only Koi Aane Ko Hai,” she says. Quiz her whether it’s easier making a paranormal show as compared to a daily soap, Ekta says that the two genres require different kind of storytelling technique. “Nothing is easy. Daily soaps are more narrative and character-driven but paranormal is more challenging because it requires better technical treatment,” she signs off.

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Freddie Flintoff bowled the first six overs of his comeback after knee surgery; two before play and four during the lunch interval in the match between Lancashire and Somerset on Sunday.

Even better news: Kevin Pietersen is operating at fully 70 per cent fitness. One must look on the bright side after learning on Monday that his fragile back-Achilles tendon condition could ground him at any time without notice.

Do the twin pillars on whom all Ashes hopes rest still believe the Indian Premier League was worth the bounty trousered? Money can’t buy that winning feeling of 2005 when victory over Australia catapulted England’s cricketers and their sport to the forefront of British public life.

England do not have the strength in depth that allowed Australia to avenge the series defeat at home to South Africa with a win away from home three months later minus their principal strike bowler. Don’t get carried away by Australia’s Tenty20 exit. The 20 over thrash is to cricket what five-a-side is to football; a different game. Ireland made it to the super 8s for goodness sake.

We don’t have a Phillip Hughes coming through, or a Mitchell Johnson to step up with ball and bat when Brett Lee goes down. We have an improving team replete with superior triers who are able to compete in the highest class only when its front-line warriors are tooled to the hilt and ready to go.

At this point Flintoff and Pietersen are not. Flintoff is inching towards recovery. Each outing is followed by a wait to see if the impaired knee joint can tolerate the next test. Pietersen does not have that luxury. Two days before the knock that nailed Pakistan to the floor at the Oval he could barely negotiate a set of steps. Two days from now he could be back in purdah.

Pietersen concedes that the cure is probably rest, three months of it. Three months he doesn’t have. The England itinerary reads like the schedule of a workaholic on speed. The Twenty20 World Cup feeds into The Ashes, feeds into the Champions Trophy, feeds into a winter in South Africa.

Pietersen felt the injury nibble in the Barbados Test during the tour to the West Indies. The condition is not straightforward. Pain manifests itself anywhere from his back to his heel. It displays the classic symptoms of wear and tear.

Cricket is as hard on the joints as any professional sport. In the West Indies, England spent days in the field labouring against batsmen anchored to dead pitches. Pietersen is a tall man. Tall men are prone to back problems. Tall cricketers put their bodies through hoops that are not designed for them. Rest needs to be built into the programme. The IPL engagement was not rest.

The issue of money is important here. Cricketers have spent too long at the wrong end of sport’s financial rainbow picking up relative peanuts compared to counterparts in football, for example, who are no better skilled but way better paid. The inducement to pad up in the IPL was almost impossible to resist.

There is always a compromise, a price to pay. Flintoff pulled up lame playing for Chennai. Pietersen put his creaking bones through a greater load in the cause of the Bangalore Royals.

When faced with the same work-rest quandary the Australia captain and vice-captain, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clark, opted to stay at home with feet up. But then, they had profited in the inaugural tournament a year before and were, perhaps, better equipped to resist the pull of pound notes.

The statistics after the 2005 Ashes epic do not necessarily make the case for panic. Flintoff and Pietersen have contributed to only three victories in 20 Tests when paired together. That run includes the 5-0 hammering in Australia when the attack that beat the old enemy in ‘05 was disrupted by injury and loss of form.

Remember Steve Harmison’s first delivery, fielded at second slip by Flintoff without being diverted by the batsman. On their own they can’t win matches. But in a halfway competent side they can make a difference. This England is a different proposition, much improved by a dependable captain operating within a stable framework, capable of properly supporting a pair of proven match-winners.

We must hope that Pietersen’s injury is manageable. A cortisone injection did the trick on Sunday. It is not ideal. A leg that can’t function without chemical support will not stay in one piece forever. If only for the sake of his long-term health Pietersen would not want to prolong a dependence on the needle.

So we await the next bulletin from Lancashire and England. The ebb and flow of an Ashes summer is already under way.

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India’s national team players have been on the road for close to four months after a full tour of New Zealand in February was followed by the second edition of the IPL.

National team coach Gary Kirsten last week said mental fatigue could hamper India’s chances of defending the title they won in South Africa in 2007, but former opener Srikkanth is confident the additional practice will prove invaluable.

“In today’s world, every nation is playing non-stop cricket,” he said. “It is tough on the players, but it’s something that can’t be helped. You have to get used to it and carry on in a professional way.

“I agree that IPL was hectic for the cricketers, but it also gave them a lot of match practice and exposure.

“Keeping in mind the World Cup, the event was really useful. There were so many close games, the kind which toughens up players. I’m very happy with the intensity the players have shown.”

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With the dashing opener ruled out of the T-20 World Cup with a shoulder injury, speculations are rife about how much he knew about the injury before embarking on the tour. Daggers have been drawn — some of them pointing at Viru and some at the Board. But the question being asked is — are our cricketers playing too much cricket and is the IPL to blame?
Too much cricket?
The calendar of the Indian cricket team is packed and the itinerary is bursting at the seams. According to ICC’s Future Tours Programme listed till 2011, a test playing country can play a maximum of 13 to 15 tests per year and 30 to 35 ODIs in a year. While most countries do not play as many, thanks to the cricket crazy nation that India is and the money involved, our cricketers end up playing the maximum. Add to this frenetic pace and stress of two T-20 world cups in the last 12 months and two IPL tournaments, and our cricketers have been more than put to the grind.
Then there’s the local league of Ranji and Duleep trophies that most players need to play to make the cut. This is definitely too much cricket for the same bunch of players, feel experts. “If the intensity is high on the field and the players are playing frequently, the chances of getting injuries are certainly high,” says Dr Kannan Pugazhendi, sports physician. “We will have more injuries in the future if players do not pick and choose the number of games they want to play.”

Injury management
For many years, Team India has focussed more on cricketing skills rather than the fitness part of it. The Sehwag fiasco has brought to light this gaping hole in the system, feel experts. “T-20 is a high-intensity sport and there’s a lot of physical activity associated with it,” says fitness trainer Ramji Srinivasan.

The travel between different venues is also bound to tire a player and that should be accounted for too, says Ramji. “However, some of them cannot be predicted. For example, leg injuries can even happen if you step on the ball while fielding and that can happen in any version of the game,” he adds.
However, according to physiotherapist Gel Solomon, “T-20 wears out players more than test or one-day cricket as the stress levels on both mind and body are higher here.”

Blame it on the player!
On the current imbroglio of Team India, there’s a school of thought that puts the entire blame on Sehwag, because he travelled to England knowing that he was nursing an injury. Former cricketer and television personality Bosskey compares it to the case of Andrew Flintoff during the IPL, when the England all-rounder deserted the Chennai Super Kings citing injury. “The player should have some amount of responsibility,” he states, “If a player is not fully fit, it’s his duty to keep the people concerned informed about it.”
Cricket commentator and former player Arun Lal is of the same view. In a television programme, he admitted that he found it a “bit strange” that Sehwag continued to play the IPL semifinal despite carrying an injury.

It happens!
The vagaries of the game, combined with the glitz and glamour, add charm to it. And, injuries are part and parcel of this very charm, feel some players. “Even if you sneeze on the cricket field, there are eight experts to examine you,” says former Ranji cricketer Vikram Mani, “There is no way you can hide an injury on the international arena.” He also feels that there is less pressure on the players to perform in T-20 cricket, when compared to other versions. “It’s fine if you come good once in 2-3 games,” he feels, “That reduces a lot of the mental pressure.”

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The FIFA Local Organizing Committee (LOC) has failed dismally to execute an advertising campaign that matches the scale of the FIFA Confederations Cup. There’s now just one week to go until this tournament gets underway and yet the frequency of advertising has not increased substantially.

A month or two ago the excuse we were given was that the IPL Cricket tournament came from nowhere and thus caught the LOC marketers by surprise. They said that they would wait until this tournament ended to avoid their advertising being lost in the heavy clutter of IPL advertising.

The IPL has gone and yet there is still very little advertising going on. Our marketing efforts are so pathetic that a South African who recently visited Brazil was amazed to find much more advertising for the 2014 World Cup that is going to take place there than what is happening here for next year’s tournament. We all know that the rate of both Confed Cup and 2014 ticket sales is alarmingly slow.

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Former Australian opener Michael Slater feels troubled all-rounder Andrew Symonds has lost his spark to play for the national team and is driven by big bucks.

In fact, the former Ashes hero believes Symonds won’t play again for Australia and will be looking at options overseas. Symonds has a year to run on his contract with the Indian Premier League (IPL) worth about $2 million.

“There is no doubt in my mind he was rushed back into the national side way too soon and frankly, he seems to be interested only in the money and not representing Australia,” the Daily Telegraph quoted Slater as saying.

“He earns big bucks in the IPL and now he’ll look at where the money is on offer elsewhere. Certainly playing for his country is way down the priority list,” Slater maintained.

Slater also claimed Symonds’ axing from the Twenty20 squad put undue pressure on the team. Symonds was sent home last week from England for another alcohol-related incident in London.

Symonds’ contract with Cricket Australia expires at the end of the month and he won’t be offered a new deal.

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