Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

Former Australian star Adam Gilchrist has called for the inclusion of cricket’s Twenty20 format at the 2020 Olympics, saying it will help secure the global future of the game - reports AFP.
The wicketkeeper-batsman, who after retiring from international cricket  played in the Indian Premier League (IPL), said the International Cricket Council (ICC) must push for Twenty20 to become an Olympic sport.

“It doesn’t matter where the 2020 Olympic Games are held,” he wrote in a column for Indian daily the Deccan Chronicle on Monday.

“But many of us who’ve experienced international Twenty20 cricket and the IPL are convinced that cricket should bid to become an Olympic sport in time for the Games,” he wrote.

Gilchrist, 36, said re-introducing cricket as an Olympic sport would help the sport grow internationally and also boost the Olympic movement in the subcontinent.

“We have a responsibility to grow our game in new territories and amongst the women of the world.

“I believe the Olympic Games is the vehicle the sport should use to aggressively sell the message of our sport to all 202 competing Olympic nations.

“So that our sport is strong and robust in countries where it is currently played, and exciting and ground-breaking in countries who haven’t yet caught the ‘cricket-bug’,” he said.

Cricket was part of the Olympics just once, in 1900, but last year it was recognised as an Olympic sport — the first step towards full admission to the Games.

“With Twenty20 cricket here to stay, now is the time for the 10 full-member nations of the ICC to plan for the development of the sport over the next 100 years,” Gilchrist said.

Gilchrist said winning an Olympic medal would be the ultimate for any cricketer.

“Take it from someone who has won almost everything cricket has to offer — the Olympics is the absolute pinnacle in sport.

“Cricketers won’t care about the money. The chance to stand on top of the Olympic podium, to wear an Olympic gold medal and the pride of belting out your national anthem would be a life-changing money-can’t-buy experience,” he said.

Tags: 20Twenty, Adam Gilchrist, cricket, ICC, IPL, olympics

The founding members, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket Australia (CA) and Cricket South Africa (CSA) after a meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday, officially announced the Champions Twenty20 League. The first edition to be held in India from September 29 to October 8, 2008 is likely to be played at Delhi, Jaipur and Mohali but IPL commissioner Lalit Modi has kept the options open as of now.

On Thursday David Collier, the chief executive of England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed Middlesex’s participation in the league, bringing to an end the speculations of a similar Champions League being organized synchronously by ECB in the UAE. Collier also expressed ECB’s interest in sending two teams from the next year.

Two teams each from the IPL, Australia’s Big Bash and South Africa’s Pro20 and one each from England and Pakistan’s Twenty20 tournament will take part in the first edition. In the coming years there are plans to make it a 12 team tournament with two teams each from India, Australia, South Africa and England and one each from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies.

Teams in 2008 and their star players

 

From India (Indian Premier League)

Winner - Rajasthan Royals

Shane Warne, Graeme Smith, Younis Khan, Shane Watson, Yusuf Pathan, Sohail Tanveer, Dmitri Mascarenhas

Runner-up - Chennai Super Kings

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Muttiah Muralidharan, Mathew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Stephen Fleming, Makhaya Ntini, Albie Morkel, Jacob Oram, Suresh Raina

 

From Australia (KFC Twenty20 Big Bash)

Winner - Victoria Bushrangers

Cameron White, David Hussey, Brad Hodge, Chris Rodgers, Dirk Nannes, Adam Crosthwaite

 

Runner-up - Western Australia Warriors

Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer, Shaun Marsh, Luke Pomersbach, Luke Ronchi, Brad Hogg, Chris Rogers, Adam Voges, Sean Ervine

 

From South Africa (Standard Bank Pro20)

Winner - Nashua Titans

Martin van Jaarsveld, AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn, Andre Nel, Morne Morkel, Gulam Bodi, Paul Harris, Pierre Joubert

 

Runner-up - Nashua Dolphins

Ahmed Amla, Shaun Pollock, Hashim Amla, Dale Benkenstein, Johann Louw, Doug Watson, Kyle Smit

 

From Pakistan (ABN-AMRO Twenty-20 Cup)

Sialkot Stallions

Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Asif, Mansoor Amjad, Abdur Rehman

 

From England (Twenty20 Cup)

Winner – Middlesex

Ed Smith, Andrew Strauss, Shaun Udal, Ed Joyce, Owais Shah, Murali Kartik, Chris Silverwood, Billy Godleman

 

Dr. Mohit Goyal © IPL Cricket Forum

Tags: 20Twenty, ABN-Amro, champions, Cup, IPL, KFC, leahue, Middlesex, Nashua Titans, Sialkot Stallions, trophy, Victoria Bushrangers

Although Lalit Modi might have got an inspiration or two from the ICL but now copying the IPL seems to have become a fashion. Australia has been the latest to announce their plans and the experts will come up with a detailed report of the format and the logistics by the next month. England announced an EPL and a Twenty20 league a few days back. While Cricket Australia seems a bit more realistic ECB is chasing bucks without any substantial plans.

After ECB revealed its plans the situation as it stands means that after the IPL in April and May, there will be an EPL in June and then England will have its domestic Twenty20 league matches on Friday and Saturday nights of July and August. While the Twenty20 league will involve the 18 counties, the EPL will involve a Stanford XI and the IPL winner besides the counties. Another interesting announcement is that the ECB will field the two teams in Champions T20 through the Twenty20 league and not through EPL. This move is begging for logic. The counties already have two overseas players playing for each of them and the only difference for the EPL is that they will be able to field three overseas players, so how are they different in the two tournaments? They could have easily fielded the top two counties from the EPL into the Champions Twenty20. Instead they decided in favor of an overdose of the shortest format.

There seem to be too many unreasonable things and many questions unanswered about the ECB’s proposal. Even if they go for just two semi-finals and a final after the league phase, the EPL will have more than 90 matches to be played. And even if they stretch it to whole of June, it will mean more than three matches per day. If they are modeling IPL and are looking for huge profits they must be insane to think that three matches per day will generate much more money than one match per day. And, even if they are able to sort this problem out by reducing the number of matches or more likely increasing the duration of the league, a hard fought IPL could make EPL fall on its face.

ECB will struggle finding the same amount of sponsorship money. When it comes to fans, they don’t have the same numbers as IPL does. The cricket fans from India won’t find much fun as the match timings won’t suit them. In IPL the team owners had to bear the expenses of hosting matches but in EPL will the counties bear for five star accommodations of international cricketers?

ECB has also announced a $12 million cap for each team. Only time will tell how it will work out. In IPL such cap was for all the international players but in EPL will it be only for the three overseas players? And if it is for all the players, will Kevin Pietersen be on sale as well? So, if some other county bids for him, will Kevin play say for Sussex in the EPL and Nottinghamshire in other matches? And if an English player has to remain with the same county, why the hell would that county pay him a buck more if they know that the player has no other options? And if the players don’t get the big bucks how the ECB satisfies those who wanted to have the big bucks of IPL?

After the announcement of EPL, Nasser Hussain flaunted his doubts over the proposal and said that, “the players weren’t asking for an IPL, they wanted a slice of the IPL money”.

In the IPL the teams have been sold by a bidding process and they have nothing to do with the domestic cricket teams. So a Rajasthan Royals player isn’t actually playing for Rajasthan but for Emerging Media and thus there is no such situation as of conflict when he plays for Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy. While in the EPL as we hear, all counties will take part. So a Kevin Pietersen or an Andrew Flintoff or a Paul Collingwood playing for one county in the EPL and for some other in other tournaments will not go down well one bit with the fans. If they have play for the same counties without option then they won’t get the huge sums of money. If they have provision of salary for England internationals in the way IPL did for icon players, what will some counties with four English internationals do? They won’t have much money left for overseas players.

If this whole article itself has got messy, how messy the whole reality would be?

Dr Mohit Goyal © IPL Cricket Forum
http://goyalmohit.blogspot.com

Tags: auction, cricket, England, EPL, Hussain, IPL, Lalit, Modi, Naseer

Michael Hussey will not be available for the Twenty20 Champions League due to Australian National Schedule. This saves him from a situation where he might have to play against his home team in the said League.

Though Michael Hussey initially preferred to play for his Native state of Western Australia in the upcoming Twenty20 Champions League, IPL Chief Lalit Modi insisted that IPL Franchisees will have the first choice for Players.

As both Western Australia and Chennai Super Kings have qualified for the Champions League it was a definite embarrassment for Hussey as he would have to play against his home team if Chennai Super Kings claimed him for their team. However, he himself was quoted saying that rules were rules and even if he considered himself a native, born and bred ‘Western Australia Boy’ he will go with the rules and play happily for Chennai.

Asstralia will be playing a four test series in India immediately after the champions trophy.

Tags: Australia, Chennai, Hussey, IPL, Michael, western

In sports like soccer and basketball club format has been in for a long time. Team mates in the English Premier League sides or NBA squads are pitted against each other when playing for their countries but it’s a first timer for cricket.

Some players playing on opposite sides will know each others’ weaknesses and strengths. Whether this will have as huge an impact as has been speculated remains to be seen. These are all world class performers and such things can only raise the level of the game.

Let’s look at some of such interesting combinations in the second one day international of the tri nation’s series in Bangladesh between India and Pakistan.

 

Virender Sehwag v Shoaib Malik

Interestingly both of them are right handed batters and right arm off break bowlers. While Sehwag is a more attacking batsman, Shoaib is a more secure and compact type of batsman and a more regular bowler. He started his career as more of a bowling all rounder but has developed into a batting all rounder. Even after knowing everything about Sehwag there is not much that oppositions can plan because on his day he would thrash the best of bowlers and go down to some sheepishly tame dismissals on others.

Sehwag is likely to open the batting and having seen him all this while he has only a chance of one in ten of being still on crease when Malik comes to roll his arm over. We may still get to see some action between the two if Sehwag bowls to Malik or if this that one of the ten days for Sehwag.

Yusuf Pathan v Sohail Tanvir

This would be an interesting battle. Yusuf Pathan is an attacking batsman with not the best techniques on show. Tanvir could apply himself or share with his mates some strategy to knock or contain Pathan.

On the other hand Tanvir has an unconventional bowling action and Yusuf could share a trick or two with his mates on how to pick his bowling, specially the well disguised slow yorkers.

Rohit Sharma v Shahid Afridi

Shahid is in excellent bowling form and Rohit is an excellent player of spin. He would have faced Afridi many a times in the nets during their stint at Hyderabad for Deccan Chargers. Shahid would definitely know a ball or two that Rohit doesn’t like as much as others. Afridi has shown that he gets out within ten balls if bowlers bowl on a good line and length but Rohit must have noticed couple of very weak points in his game.

Praveen Kumar v Misbah-ul-Haq
Praveen Kumar has bowled very intelligently in the last six months. He bowled an excellent last over in an IPL match for Bangalore against Chennai where he gave just one run with Suresh Raina on strike leading his side to a 13 run win. Misbah didn’t have the best of time at IPL failing to contribute substantially. Praveen must surely have grabbed a thing or two about his batting and batting technique.

© IPL Cricket forum

Tags: bangladesh, cricket, india, IPL, Pakistan, Tri Nation