Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

Indian Premier League (IPL) have decided to maintain the Cap of USD 5 Million for Player acquisition as it feels that removing the cap could take the blood out of the competition.

Very recently Ricky Ponting who played in IPL before going back to Australia insisted that the scrapping of the salary cap could ruin the tournament by allowing the mega-rich franchises to grab all the big boys.

However IPL have decided to open a Transfer Window for players as early as Februray but this will not be applicable for the Icons like - Sachin Tendulkar, Shewag, Rahul Dravid, Ganguly, Yuvraj and Dhoni. Otherwise if any player and franchisee comes at an understanding there can be a transfer of Players between Franchisees.

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“Once upon a time a war was called between eight kingdoms. All the kingdoms had to build their armies with very less time in their hands, an army that could stand the test of put up by others with their strength and the test of time with their endurance.

One of the kingdoms which lie in a desert had all odds in front of it and was counted out by all means and by all people. They were searching for a General when a senior man with golden hair volunteered. Everybody doubted him, not his abilities but because he had not entered the battle field for a long time now.

The people of the kingdom silently prayed for the success of this brave man. He went about preparing his army for the battles ahead and tried to find out the special abilities of his men.

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Editorial: Mohit Goyal

Indian Premier League (IPL) Match Preview – The Grand Finale

The Armies – Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings

Rajasthan Royals made brief work of it with an emphatic 105 run win over the Delhi Daredevils on Friday. Chennai Super Kings, the firm non-favorites beat Kings XI Punjab by 9
wickets with overs to spare.

The Battleground – DY Patil Cricket Stadium, Navi Mumbai, Mumbai

While the pitch at Wankhede had help for spinners, the pitch at this ground has more pace and bounce. Rajasthan bowlers have bowled well on most pitches. Chennai with Ntini, Morkel and Gony will be happier to play on this sort of pitch and absence of Graeme Smith on this sort of pitch will be a factor. Rajasthan have played a match at this ground. Although they were shot out here by Mumbai but Warne would surely have picked a point or two.

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Mumbai: Partho Mitra

South African batsman Graeme Smith, opener for Rajasthan Royals has been ruled out of the Final on Sunday due to a hamstring injury. Smith who was quite fit on the field was injured during the semi-finals with Delhi Daredevils yesterday.

Shane Warne is considering either Yunus Khan or Kamran Akmal  to open in the finals with Swapnil Asnodkar. However, Khan with only one IPL match in which he scored three runs and Akmal with five matches (avg 30) is no match to Smith but everyone is aware how Warney handles his players and install confidence in them.

Shane also acknowledged Smith’s role in shaping up the teams success. Smith has scored a total of 441 runs (11 matches) with an average close to 49 and is considered as one of the strongest opening pair along with Swapnil.

Editorial

Rajasthan Royals is a team which was virtually written off by all Cricket Guru’s in the initial stages of the Indian Premier League (IPL) just after the auction . Even Lalit Modi was not too happy with the amounts spend for acquiring Crickets in the auction as his expectations were high given the financial clout of Lalchan Murdock - an heir of the billion dollar star TV / Fox Tv empire and son of Media Moghul Rupert Murdoch. Rajastnan Royals remained a passive observer of the ignorant hype of bollywood kings and badshah’s and million dollar splash from the Ambanis and the Mallaya’s.

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