Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

The Sports Journalists’ Federation of India (SJFI) and The Editors Guild outrightly rejected the accreditation norms put forward by the Indian Premier League (IPL) authorities.

In a letter addressed to the BCCI President Sharad Pawar and IPL Chairman Lalit Modi, the Guild said, “With deep regret and dismay, we are forced to point out that there are prohibitive conditions in the terms and conditions attached with the (accreditation) form…These conditions are unprecedented and unacceptable to the Indian media, to say the least.”

Both EGI and SJFI were irked by the conditions which state that the media cannot use image or photograph in any other publication even if it belongs to the same organisation.

“To say the least, this is a ridiculous claim, unheard of in the annals of free India’s media tradition,” EGI observed.

The IPL accreditation norm also says newspapers and news agencies cannot use still images, taken by their accredited photographers, for online editions.

“In an age when most newspapers are also available to online readers, this stipulation is extremely untenable,” EGI noted.

The norms also demand that the media organisations have to upload, at their own cost, images they have obtained on the official website of the Twenty20 tournament and IPL can use these photographs without making any payment to the newspapers or news agencies.

The DLF Indian Premier League becane the world’s richest domestic cricket tournaments today with a winners’ cheque of US$ 3 Million or Rs 4.8 crore and overall prize money of Rs 12 crore being offered for the inaugural tournament.

The winning team will take away Rs4.8 crore ($1.2 million) while the runners-up will get Rs2.4 crore ($600,00).

In comparison the prize money on offer for the World Cup last year was $5 million, the Indian Cricket League spent $1 million while Stanford20/20 tournament gave out $2.5 million in prize money this year.

“The Rs. 4.8 crore winners’ purse makes the DLF IPL truly one of the richest events for a domestic Twenty20 league anywhere in the world,” IPL chairman and Board of Control for Cricket in India vice-president Lalit Modi said.

The rest of the IPL prize money is divided in to Rs1.2 crore for the two semi-finalists, Rs Rs 80 lakh ($200,00) for the fifth runner-up, Rs70 lakh for the sixth, Rs50 lakh for the seventh, Rs40 lakh for the eighth.

Apart from that the Player of the Tournament, picked by Ravi Shastri, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Sunil Gavaskar, will receive Rs10 lakh.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders and Vijay Mallya’s Bangalore Royal Challengers,will play the first tie at the Chinnaswamy stadium, in Bangalore. Fifty-nine matches will be played over 44 days.

Here is an exclusive glimpse of some IPL teams Mascots!

Hooglee - Knight Riders

DD (D2) of Delhi Daredevils

Moochu Singh - Rajasthan Royals

More to come in the following days!

After
receiving two consecutive jolts, Pakistani pacer Shoaib Akhtar got his
share of much needed support from none other than IPL’s Kolkata Knight
Riders owner Shahrukh Khan. The Bollywood superstar made it clear that
he wants to find a way out so that Shoaib can play in the Indian
Premier League.

Shahrukh Khan clearly said, “I will talk to the
Board about this move taken by them. I want to know the reason behind
such a decision and I will try to see what best I can do.” SRK also
added, “Shoaib is banned from international cricket and IPL is not
international. So, I don’t know why he cannot play in the league.
Shoaib is very important for the team and I will talk to the
officials.” The Shoaib Akhtar saga seems to be never-ending. But words
from King Khan — the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders of which Shoaib is
a part of, can just reignite the hope for the bad boy and can set the
ball in motion for clearing the way for Shoaib’s participation in the
IPL.

Shahrukh Khan’s assertion came a few hours after
IPL’s Commissioner Lalit Modi made it clear that Shoaib can’t play for
the Knight Riders, expanding the net of Pakistan Cricket Board’s 5-year
ban on the speedster. Lalit Modi said, “Unless and until Shoaib gets
himself cleared from the 5-year ban, he can’t play in IPL. We can’t
allow a banned player to play in IPL. If one of our players would have
been banned similarly we wouldn’t have liked him to play anywhere else.
Ban on disciplinary grounds is a serious matter, till the time he is
cleared, we will give the ‘Kolkata Knight Riders’ an option to replace
Shoaib with another player.”

However,
Shahrukh’s words must have come as solace to Shoaib, who has been
making a case for himself. Shoaib had earlier said that he wants to
know where he has faultered for which he has been banned from playing
international cricket. He added, “I have done nothing wrong. If the
Board has banned me on disciplinary grounds, then the Board should
inform what wrong have I done.”

At the centre of the controversy are the accreditation terms and
conditions for photographers. The IPL states categorically that no
“Accredited Party” would be allowed to make available match images for
on-line publication and mobile phone users.

The relevant clause states that the IPL reserves the right to use
all images captured during the matches by any party; and all parties
must make available the images to IPL within 24 hours of the match by
uploading them on the IPL website at their own cost, else their
accreditation would be immediately withdrawn.

As such, the terms and conditions effectively prohibit agencies from
covering the matches since websites form more than a major portion of
their client base.