Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

Shane Warnes exit from Hanpshire last week after his long asscoiation of eight years last week, and warnings from the Professional Cricketers’ Association,
the IPL are now seen as a major threat to the future of the sport in
this country. Inder Singh Bindra, who sits on the IPL’s governing
committee, told the Daily Telegraph that it was in their interests to
maintain the stability of world cricket.

“We cannot live in isolation,” Bindra added. “There is
always apprehension when you start something new, but we have put in
safeguards to protect the game. Players cannot appear without the
permission of their own national board, and even if they retire, there
is still a two-year cooling-off period before they become eligible.

“If
there is a threat to the game,” Bindra added, “it comes from the unauthorized tournaments, because they are operating without
constraints. In fact, if we had not started the IPL, there would have
been many more players going to the rebel leagues. Some of the smaller
international teams would have been wiped out, because their boards
would not have been able to resist.”

After the success of the IPL - who have already earned more than a
billion dollars before the first ball has even been bowled - other
boards around the world have begun investigating their own ways of
benefiting from the 20-over boom - Daily Telegraph reported.

On April 9, the England and Wales Cricket Board will
consider radical plans to split the Twenty20 Cup into two different
competitions from 2010 onwards. More immediately, ECB chairman Giles
Clarke hopes that the cup’s rules will be changed to allow counties to
field three overseas players as early as this summer.

The
men running the IPL might be expected to resent these attempts to
muscle in on their territory. Bindra, in fact, says he welcomes the
expansion of the IPL concept. “We want to work together with other
boards to make the official structure of domestic and international
cricket as strong as possible,” he said. “The ECB is a good example,
because the rebels are already looking to expand into grounds in
England.

“They will need billions of dollars to
compete with our infrastructure in India, but they could probably buy
up a countryside venue over there for a couple of million.”

Clearly,
Bindra was referring to the threat from the Indian Cricket League.
Bankrolled by the broadcasting network Zee TV, ICL are on the verge of
finishing their second 20-over competition in India. Their
representatives are known to have met the owners of private grounds in
England.

The ECB have refused to register five of
the ICL players, including the South Africans Justin Kemp, Andrew Hall
and Johannes van der Wath. The cases are now under appeal, but if the
ECB stick to their hard-line stance, they are likely to face a
“restraint of trade” suit.

A lawyer for the ICL
players said yesterday: “The Warne case is significant because the ECB
claim one of the reasons they are opposed to the ICL is because it has
the potential to clash with the English county season. Now they will
have to show a good reason why the IPL is not subject to the same
objection.”

Ip[l is truly not a threat to English or any Cricket - its the format or rather the future of cricket.

Shane Warne, who will captain Rajasthan
Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL), feels the cash-rich Twenty20
extravaganza will be a huge boost for cricket - worldwide.

“It
is not a case of putting the Indian Premier League before my county.
Yes, I am excited about coaching and captaining the Rajasthan Royals
and I believe that the IPL will give a huge boost to cricket
worldwide,” Warne wrote in his weekly column in The Times. Warne, who
retired from county cricket on Friday after his long association of eight years, said IPL was not the only reason
behind his decision to quit playing first-class cricket and he had
several other engagements to take care of.

“I
am giving it (IPL) my full commitment, but that was only part of the
decision. Giving up first-class cricket is a really tough decision. It
is something you only do once, so I thought long and hard before ending
my Hampshire career. “The county has been my second home for close to a
decade, but the more I looked at my schedule for the rest of this year,
the more obvious it seemed to be the way to go” - Shane mentioned.

Charting
out his priorities for the next year, Warne said: “The IPL spans more
than six weeks even without preparation time. I also have six one-week
engagements with World Series Poker and half a dozen sponsors with
activities over the year, as well as fund-raising work for the Shane
Warne Foundation.”

The future of Cricket can be in turmoil as Twenty20 is generating millions but fewer people watch the five-day game – and soon fewer countries may be playing it - reports The Independent.

Big-time cricket all looks so rosy. It isat the start of a $1.1 billion
(£550m) tele-vision rights deal for international tournaments, which should
keep the wolf from the door until 2015. It is weeks away from the quite
astonishingly lucrative Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition from
which most of the leading cricketers in the world will reap rewards beyond
their dreams and avarice.

Money has done a lot of talking. Couldn’t be better? Don’t believe it. The
game is hurtling towards a crossroads and not only might it struggle to know
which way to turn, it might also have little choice in the matter. One
country, India, is setting the pace and plotting the direction.

Other countries are wondering how to respond. They recognise the new league as
a hithertounseen cash cow but in some cases are casting envious eyes. There
are reactions and knees jerking everywhere. New Zealand bowed to the
inevitable last week by allowing five of their players to arrive late for
the tour of England so that they could earn some of the Indian money. In
England, there is mild panic, with talk of the big counties trying to form
their own breakaway league.

Test cricket, the blue riband version of the game, is under impending threat.
In six of the 10 countries where it is played, it is virtually unwatched
most of the time by live audiences, while in a seventh, Zimbabwe, it has not
been played for almost three years and may never beso again.

Vibrant though the game might be in three countries – England, Australia and
India – there are profound concerns that most of the power, influence and,
crucially, money will all belong to India. The International Cricket Council
are probably worried, but what their officials possess in gumption they lack
in influence, especially where India are concerned.

It might be time for the players to intervene, but hard though they try, their
voice appears frequently to be paid lip service. David Morgan, who will take
over as the ICC president this summer after five years as chairman of the
England and Wales Cricket Board, is determined to give the players a greater
voice, to which the ICC will listen.

He might care to heed the beseeching of Tim May, the chief executive of the
Federation of International Cricketers’ Assoc-iations (Fica), who said last
week that there should be an immediate and comprehensive review of cricket’s
structure.

“We’ve got to sit down and see where we are going,” he said. “There
has to be deep due diligence about the impact of Twenty20 and of the Indian
Premier League.” Since this is unlikely to happen – the last survey
produced little change except an alteration to the Future Tours Programme –
Fica are conducting a survey of all international players in the next few
weeks. The trouble is that India’s players do not have an association and do
not come under Fica’s umbrella, which automatically weakens the
organisation’s voice.

The IPL – and to some extent their unofficial rivals, the IndianCricket League
– are casting a huge shadow. Before a ball has been bowled, before anybody
can even be sure that there will be spectators, they have createda
revolution.

Morgan, like everybody else in the ICC, gave it a cautious welcome. “I
see it as more of an opportunity than a threat,” he said. He denied
that the ICC backed it. “It is approved by its host board, the BCCI
[Board of Control for Cricket in India], and therefore is no different from
the ECB’s Twenty20, so it doesn’t need the blessing of the ICC.” But he
must know the difference is obvious – big bucks.

Those bucks, however, might be limited. There is concern in the game that the
funds poured into the IPL are not new money but merely a redirection of
funds.

May said: “When you see the figures about global revenues, a lot comes
from India already. The people who already invest in global ICC events are
also those to some extent investing in the IPL.

“The question is whetherthat is an incremental investment. If there is a
finite ball of revenue which is being redistributed for the benefit of one
rather than for the benefit of all, we will have a big problem in a few
years.”

The future of Test cricket in all this remains uncertain. The ICC, while
protective, also appear to be sanguine. Morgan said: “I think it’s
important that at any one time you have five or six members who are capable
of beating the others. It needs to be competitive but I believe there will
be an appetite among full members to have a balanced mix. Whether Test
cricket can be played over four days is something we need to address.”

Four days or five, too few people are watching it in too many countries. The
recent Test matches between New Zealand and England were watched by
relatively full houses – but on tiny grounds and only because of the large
contingent of England fans. In terms of broadcasting rights, a five-day Test
match is now worth considerably less than a single one-day international.

An unspoken – at least by the ICC – prospect is that the number of
Test-playing countries might reduce rather than increase. May said: “Test
cricket is very much the traditional part of cricket, and we’re looking at
societies that as a whole are very much less traditional, so why should Test
cricket be any different in feeling the effects of that? So what do we do?
We need to find out what is important to us, and why. It may be that in 20
years, Test cricket is played in only six countries, where it is alive and
kicking.” - The Independent added.

In every country, Twenty20 generally and the IPL specifically are exerting an
effect. The ECB are hardly exempt. They are already examining their domestic
structure to see if a wider version of Twenty20 can be accommodated, perhaps
involving more overseas players. But they cannot hope to compete with the
millions swilling around India.

This has prompted talk of a county breakaway. The game is in turmoil
everywhere and it might be the calm before the storm.

Like we said earlier - the world is fast today and people really dont have the time to sit and watch a five day test - we have less time today and much more to do than in the past which was ruled by a ten to five schedule and lazy sundays in absence of TV, Plane or Mobile Phones.

Australian fast bowler Nathan Bracken’s will not be available
for the early stages of the lucrative Indian Premier League after he underwent a
major surgery on his knee.

Bracken, who signed up for Bangalore
Royal Challengers in the April 18-June 1 IPL for $325,000, underwent surgery on
Thursday after a scan showed his knee cartilage was on the verge of snapping,
and surgeons said his recuperation could take between four and 10 weeks.

‘The Age’ reported that Bracken has told Bangalore Royal Challengers
that he won’t be available for the early stages of IPL, but could be fit for the
Twenty20 competition’s latter stages.

“The big thing now is that I
do the right rehabilitation. If there is any pain and discomfort I’m going to
have to stop. It’s important I don’t push it too hard,” said Bracken, who was
the man of the series in the recent tri-series also involving India and Sri
Lanka.”

Cartilage injuries aren’t normally very serious but Bracken
was told by his surgeon that his carrier could have been seriously threatened
had his knee snapped while bowling.

“I was doing more damage to the
ligament every time I walked or moved. It was serious. It could have ended my
career if it went, for sure,” Bracken said.

“I had bone bruising
and, while that was an issue, I actually had a large tear in my cartilage. When
I was on the operating table, the doctor said the cartilage in the area was like
old paint peeling off a wall.”

“A big chunk of cartilage came out
while he was cleaning the area up. He (the surgeon) was amazed I was able to
play through the summer.”

Private Equity Funds might invest in IPL as the valuation and revenue generation streams are well defined.

Sources close to some of the franchisees, which include Reliance Industries, India Cements and United Spirits, told Business Line that funds such as ICICI Ventures and Kotak Private Equity Group are reportedly in talks with some of them.

Sources in ICICI Ventures said there is a possibility the company is
involved in talks with Reliance Industries, which has bought the rights
for the Mumbai team for Rs 441 crore. An official with Ceat Tyres,
which brings out annual cricket ratings, said the company is on a ‘wait
and watch’ mode before deciding on investing in the IPL.

An official with Kotak Private Equity Group, however, denied any such move.

“We are not aware of any such moves but we are not sure if any other
arm of Kotak is involved in such talks,” the official said. Another PE
fund official said the valuation for each team is well defined and so
are the revenue streams, and hence it is easier for any investor to
pick up stake.

Early this year, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)
launched an auction for eight teams representing eight cities which
will take part in a series of 20:20 matches for the IPL starting from
April 18. The auction yielded a whopping Rs 2,843 crore from leading
corporate-houses.

An official with PE fund Sage Capital Advisers said that though the
company had not taken a decision on picking a stake in any of the eight
franchisees, it believes that such a move would be similar to
“accessing a part of the India story”.

“Even if the stock market was performing well, PE funds or even
venture capital companies would be keen to pick up a stake because
there is always the possibility of these teams getting listed on the
stock exchanges,” Sage Capital’s Managing Director Mr Manish Kanchan,
said.

Grant Thornton’s partner for specialist advisory services, Ms C.G.
Srividya said that as a business it offers private equity players a
diversified investment option as it is fairly insulated from issues
such as the sub-prime crisis, dollar depreciation, US slowdown and
price cuts that several international-focused Indian businesses are
facing today.

“Cricket is something which will never go out of fashion in India
and the key success factor for the business is to sustain the interest
levels by ensuring the team is in as good a form as it is now,” she
said.

Its all good news for the IPL Franchisees and the teams.