"IPL, Inside and Out"

It has been described as the Indian revolution, the tournament that will change the face of cricket forever. The Indian Premier League (IPL) introduced new levels of glamour and wealth to the game as soon as its first-auction was held.

Bangalore Royal Challengers will face Kolkata Knight Riders to kick off a six-week tournament featuring most of the finest talents in the world game.

IPL team-guide

Name: Bangalore Royal Challengers

Owner: Vijay Mallya

Ground: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore

Coach: Venkatesh Prasad

Captain: Rahul Dravid

Star player: Jacques Kallis

Most expensive player: Rahul Dravid, US$ 1.35 mln

Total cost of squad: US$ 5,795,000

Name: Chennai Super Kings

Owner: India Cements

Ground: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

Coach: Keppler Wessels

Captain: Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Star player: Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Most expensive player: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, US$ 1.5 mln

Total cost: US$ 6,225,000

Name: Deccan Chargers

Owner: Deccan Chronicle

Ground: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad

Coach: Robin Singh

Captain: VVS Laxman

Star player: Andrew Symonds

Most expensive player: Andrew Symonds, US$ 1.35 mln

Total cost: US$ 6,105,000

Name: Delhi Daredevils

Owner: GMR Holdings

Ground: Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi

Coach: Greg Shipperd

Captain: Virender Sehwag

Star player: Virender Sehwag

Most expensive player: Virender Sehwag, US$ 833,750

Total cost: US$ 6,372,500

Name: King's XI, Punjab

Owner: Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, Karan Paul and Mohit Burman

Ground: Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali

Coach: Tom Moody

Captain: Yuvraj Singh

Star player: Brett Lee

Most expensive player: Yuvraj Singh, US$ 1,063,750

Total cost: US$ 6,503,750

Name: Kolkata Knight Riders

Owner: Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla & Jai Mehta

Ground: Eden Gardens, Kolkata

Coach: John Buchanan

Captain: Sourav Ganguly

Star player: Chris Gayle

Most expensive player: Sourav Ganguly, US$ 1,092,500

Total cost: US$ 6,222,500

Name: Mumbai Indians

Owner: Reliance Industries

Ground: Nerul, Mumbai

Coach: Lalchand Rajput

Captain: Sachin Tendulkar

Star player: Sachin Tendulkar

Most expensive player: Sachin Tendulkar, US$ 1,121,250

Total cost: US$ 5,496,250

Name: Rajasthan Royals

Owner: Emerging Media

Ground: Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur

Coach: Shane Warne

Captain: Shane Warne

Star player: Graeme Smith

Most expensive player: Mohammad Kaif, US$ 675,000

Total cost: US$ 3,610,000

Image Day - Rahul Dravid

India's Rahul Dravid gestures to the crowd after scoring 10,000 runs, during the fourth day of the first test match of the Future Cup series against South Africa.

> AP Images

Image Day - Indian Premier League

Indian Premier League team owners Bollywood stars Shahrukh Khan and Preity-Zinta confer at a press conference at the end of the auction of cricket players for the Indian Premier League in Mumbai, India.

Movie stars and moguls reached ever deeper into their pockets as the world's best cricketers went under the hammer at the player auction for the upcoming Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition.

> AP Images

Image Day - Ishant Sharma

India's Ishant Sharma, celebrates the wicket of Ricky Ponting of Australia, during the one-day international at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia.

> AP Images

NZ wrap-up Bangladesh

New-Zealand completed a two-game series whitewash with an emphatic victory over Bangladesh in the 2nd Test at Wellington's Basin-Reserve.

Faint hopes of avoiding an innings loss were dealt a blow when Habibul Bashar was dismissed for 25 by Chris Martin.

Shakib top-scored for the Bangladesh, with an unbeaten 41 while two second-innings wickets gave him figures of seven for 100 in the match. He survived a dropped catch by Iain O'Brien as he patiently added 23 runs in 13 overs with Shahadat Hossain.

• Bangladesh 143 & 113; New Zealand 393


• New Zealand win by an innings and 137 runs

Via Guardian-Unlimited

The case-against Harbhajan

The Symonds affair and the charge of racial abuse laid against Harbhajan-Singh by Ricky-Ponting could change the way in which international cricket is regulated.

Newspaper reports seem to suggest that the umpires didn’t hear the exchange that gave rise to the charge. Channel 9 has reviewed its audio tapes and found no record of the offensive comments either.

The other possibility is that in the course of the hearing, Tendulkar, who was batting with Harbhajan at the time and who seemed to have heard part of the exchange, isn’t able to whole-heartedly exonerate Harbhajan.

However, if neither tape nor Tendulkar backs up the Australian charge, then international cricket’s in trouble. Cricket has been down this road once before.

Some years ago Rashid-Latif was accused by Adam-Gilchrist of calling him a ‘white c__t”. Australian cricketers famously leave on-field quarrels on the field.

Ponting has chosen to take Harbhajan to ‘court’. But if Ponting can’t come up with the evidence for a ‘conviction’, if his case is based on 'Symonds' word.

Players and officials will be asking for stump microphones to be left on all the time, so that allegations of this sort in the future can be settled by technology.

Via Cricinfo

Asian dilemma

Originally published on the NFB-Blog, Sunday, June 10, 2007.

Asia’s headhunt for cricket coaches is getting curious and curious by the day.

It is by a strange coincidence that one finds the four leading cricket nations in the subcontinent India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in a situation where they are all on the search for a suitable foreign cricket coach for their respective national cricket teams.

Among the four coaches who quit their jobs Whatmore has the best credentials. He was the only coach to guide a team to win the World Cup.

He achieved it in his initial stint as coach with the Sri Lanka team in 1996. His instant success proved a successful formula for other Asian countries to emulate.

In his second assignment with Sri Lanka three years later he took them to the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2003.

News via The Nation - Image by Amer Habib

Goodluck Bangladesh

Bangladesh, following the Indian run trail on the third-day of the second test match with India are facing heavy defeat, which should be a wake-up call after their world cup histrionics.

The Bangladeshi Cricket Board are lost in the fact that, they are about to face a new-era after Dav Whatmore. But, have to decide on whether to thrive on the over-rated performances, or live-on to see the team moving on to better feats.

So, are the Bangladeshi batsmen deficient? Maybe not, but they do lack fundamental sporting abilities, apart from Mashrafe Mortaza, and as seen today, Mohammad Sharif.

Captain Bashar is leading the way, in showing players how to drop your bat without a fight. Even in the world-cup, he seemed not ready to perform when needed. Players like Ashraful have looked frustrated; in matches, where the captain has just declined to work for his money.

There must be an overhaul of the total team-structure, right up to the top. For long, cricket has been a lucrative reward for few business minded individuals at the Bangladesh Cricket Board, and it is surely high-time that the Bangladeshi authorities took steps to re-shuffle its cricketing-management.

Although, that actually happening, is very unlikely. Goodluck Bangladesh!

> Image by Catch the dream

> Links: Cricket India, Bangladesh Cricket Network

Goodbye Whatmore

Dav Whatmore the Bangladeshi cricket coach is due to say farewell to his Deshi fans. In four years of coaching, Bangladesh has brought Dav Whatmore both frustration and joy.

For one last time, Whatmore urged his team to show some fight and play sensibly.

"It is still a serious game of cricket, and we are focused on not repeating some of the mistakes we have been making," he said on the eve of the second Test, the first to be staged at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium at Mirpur.