Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

Lord’s and the Brit Oval are considering initial offers to stage games
involving an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise this season. MCC and
Surrey have been approached by organisers of the new competition, as all 18
counties come to terms with the significant impact that it could have on the
game this season.

Having secured the most lucrative television deal in cricket history, worth
$1billion (about £501million) over ten years, the IPL is understandably keen
to expand beyond the inaugural tournament, which runs from April 18 to June
1. Those games have been allocated venues in India, but they are hopeful of
staging what would be closer to exhibition matches in London.

Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, declined to confirm that Surrey have
been targeted by the IPL, while a spokesman for MCC said: “We are not making
any comment on this story at the moment.”

A suggestion that Hampshire have been contacted was denied by the club last
night, although they would be interested in playing hosts.

A spokesman for the ECB said that the board was “working tirelessly” to review
the options available for the Twenty20 Cup in 2008 and a proposal emanating
from Giles Clarke, the chairman, to allow counties to field three overseas
players solely for the event may be passed as early as the second week of
April, in time for the summer.

With a BBC survey this week revealing that only two counties envisage no
potential threat from the IPL or the “rebel” India Cricket League (ICL), the
belief is growing that, having been slow to build on the momentum of the
first seasons from 2003, the English game must now act quickly to
reinvigorate the format.

Sheldon, speaking in general terms, said. “We are at a pivotal moment in the
history of cricket. It is inevitable that the franchise system will explode
internationally sooner rather than later and we want to be in pole position
to exploit the potential of that with our wonderful ground and geographical
location.

“We do not want a breakaway situation. We will see what the ECB come up with
in rescheduling our own Twenty20 and we hope it will involve franchises.
That would be the biggest commercial opportunity that we might be able to
exploit. We are open-minded about discussions with people who are
potentially going to push this forward.”

Dimitri Mascarenhas revealed that the IPL was a hot topic in the England
dressing-room during at least the one-day leg of the recent New Zealand tour while Lalit Modi, one of the
leading architects of the competition, has said that some of the senior
players in the squad would be keen to follow Mascarenhas if the timings
suit.

Sean Morris, the new chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’
Association, has been in regular contact with the ECB over what he described
as the “totally unique” opportunities presented to top players. He warned
that, without understanding, the England team could be “decimated of its
star players.”

The ECB was given another headache yesterday when Niranjan Shah, the secretary
of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said that a complaint will be
lodged after Mushtaq Ahmed, of Sussex, and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, of
Yorkshire, were given permission to play for their counties this year,
despite their appearances in the ICL.

Both players received clearance from Pakistan via No Objection Certificates,
leaving the ECB on dangerous legal territory if it sought to extend bans
already imposed on five ICL players.

Shah said: “We will take up the issue since the two counties are under the
jurisdiction of the England board.”

From April 18, all cricket lovers are in for a bonanza, till the final
on June 1. The viewers will get to see a lot of high-on-adrenaline
action on the field. It’s already been announced that the inaugural
Indian Premier League (IPL) match will be between SRK’s Kolkata Knight
Riders and Vijay Mallya’s Bangalore Royal Challengers at the
Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bangalore.

Quite obviously then, in a
cricket crazy nation like ours, everything else will take a backseat.
Even movies, our other everlasting love and teleserials. With 59
matches, all played during late afternoon and evening coinciding with
prime time TV, the event may well spoil some good parties in Bollywood.

In
the words of Lalit Modi, Chairman and commissioner, DLF IPL, “The live
in-stadia entertainment, combined with on-field action will hook
viewers onto this new adrenaline packed live family entertainment
format. It’ll also be attracting a younger fan base, including women
and children.”

The general entertainment television is pulling
out all stops to ensure that the audience does not abandon them. The
Twenty20 matches will start from 4 pm onwards, with the day’s last
match starting at 8 pm. While 4 pm to 6 pm is crucial for music and
kids channels, 9 pm to 11 pm is prime time for channels Star Plus, Zee
TV , NDTV Imagine, 9X and Sony Entertainment Television.

April
is the peak season for advertising agencies flush with funds at the
beginning of the new fiscal year. With summer and vacations a step
away, it is also the season for aggressive advertising for summer
products.

Most channels are launching new, big budget shows to
keep viewers from switching loyalties, with big buck celebrities being
roped in. Star Plus is all set to launch ‘Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez
Hain?’, a game show with Shah Rukh Khan. Zee Entertainment Enterprises
Ltd has recently launched ‘Rock-N-Roll Family’ with actors Kajol and
Ajay Devgan as Judges, while INX Media will launch ‘Chak De Bachche’,
yet another talent hunt show.

Cricket experts also feel that
the Indian team’s T20 triumph and their victory in Australia will
further boost the TRPs for this first-of-its-kind tournament. Also, the
tournament will stretch for almost a month and a half – 44 days to be
precise. And cricket enthusiasts will try their best not to miss a
single evening. Does that send a shiver down Bollywood’s collective
spine? What will happen to the new releases falling within this period,
or for that matter, the weekend business?

“It will surely hit
the Box Office in a big way. Whenever there is something big like this
happening, the curiosity levels are high and that will have people
glued to their TV sets. The same happened when Big B and SRK hosted
KBC. Later, of course, it’ll all depend on who’s playing against whom,”
says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

Producer Ravi Chopra’s film,
Bhootnath, is to be released during the same time. He says, “How
popular it is going to be will be known only once it kicks-off. ICL per
se has not been a run away hit but considering there are big stars
involved in IPL, it can be popular. Our release date, as of now, is May
9. We will assess the situation and take a call by then.”

Adds
producer Mukesh Bhatt, “The amount of money riding on it, the presence
of Bollywood stars and the tremendous media hype has already made IPL
an exciting concept. Frankly, it will be suicidal to release a movie in
the first week and the last week of IPL. But as it is said in
Bollywood, you don’t know the fate of the movie until it’s released.
The same goes for IPL.”

Former Mumbai opener Shishir Hattangadi has
quit the rebel Indian Cricket League and joined the Hyderabad franchise
team Deccan Chargers to play in the April 18-June 1 Indian Premier
League, promoted by the Cricket Board, as the squad’s manager.

Greg King, till
recently the national team’s trainer, has joined the Chennai Super
Kings as assistant coach/trainer under coach Kepler Wessels, former
South Africa opener.

Indian
Premier League Chairman Lalit Modi on Friday said there was not an iota
of doubt about all future editions of the Twenty20 extravaganza.

In a clarification, Modi said he was
misquoted and his comments that the “second season of the IPL was a
distant dream” were taken out of context which led to the confusion.

According to him, he was asked whether
he envisaged two IPL seasons in the same year to which his reply was “a
second season in the same year is a distant dream.”

“For the record the second and all future seasons of the DLF IPL in 2009 onwards are not in any doubt,” Modi said.

A city court on Thursday directed petitioners and Red Chillies
Entertainment to file affidavits by April 8 on a plea seeking free tickets for
the 31,000 Cricket Association of Bengal members during the upcoming Indian
Premier League ties at the Eden Gardens.

Justice Murari Mohan Ghosh,
directed that the matter would come up for hearing on the said date.

The court, however, did not pass any order of injunction as prayed
for by the petitioners Bengal Cricket Lovers’ Forum on distribution of tickets
for the matches.

Appearing for the petitioners, lawyer Ajay Sanyal
contended that according to CAB rules, life, annual and associate members were
entitled to watch all matches - except charity ties - at Eden Gardens free of
cost.

He claimed that the rights and privileges of all the CAB
members were being infringed upon by asking them to pay for viewing the matches
to be held from April 20.

CAB counsel Narendranath Chakraborty
sought time from the court saying his client had not yet received any notice
from the petitioners and as such was not prepared for the case.

Nobody appeared for the other respondents, including RCE of filmstar
Shah Rukh Khan.

The Bengal Cricket Lovers’ Forum has been floated by
nearly 6,000 CAB members.

RCE is the franchisee owner of the team
‘Kolkata Knight Riders’ that would organise the matches at the Eden as per IPL
rules.