CRICSTARS THE STARS OF CRICKET

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE OFFICIAL WEBSITE IPLT20.COM, seems to be down the whole day. Now seeing it advertised so heavily and still being down comes as a major thumbs down to the DLFA IPL Cricket Tourtnament. We would expect that a tournament with teams of Vijay Mallaya, Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta would do better than this.

IPL INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE

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The live scorecard and commentary for the Indian Premier League Match – Kings XI Punjab vs Chennai Super Kings

Live Scores and Live Commentary

• One more celebrity Bollywood star joined in IPL Bandwagon, Katrina Kaif will promote Vijay Mallya’s Royal Challengers Katrina will shoot an exclusive music video for Mallya’s team directed by Sanjay Gupta.

• 38 year old Aussie cricketer Darren Lehmann will replace South African skipper Graeme Smith in Jaipur-based IPL franchise the Rajastan Royals’ opening matches, thanks to Shane Warne, but of all cricketers Darren Lehmann??common sense is not that common

• Malcolm Speed feels there was no immediate need to carve out a slot for the Indian Premier League in the Future Tours Programme at the moment and feels the biggest was how to integrate the T20 format with Tests and ODIs to ensure that none had to face disinterest of the fans. Ha well said its not the test format..but flat test pitches like the one at chennai which spoil the thrill of test matches

• England players could be allowed to play in the Indian Premier League at the ECB’s discretion, welcome guys to the party

Owner: Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries Limited)
Official Website: Not been launched yet

Captain: Sachin Tendulkar
Coach: Lalchand Rajput

Batsmen:
Sachin Tendulkar
Sanath Jayasuriya
Robin Uthappa
Loots Bosman
Ashwell Prince
Ajinkya Rahane
Manish Pandey
Saurabh Tiwary

Wicket Keepers / All Rounders:
Luke Ronchi
Yogesh Takawale
Pinal Shah
Shaun Pollock
Abhishek Nayar

Bowlers:
Harbhajan Singh
Lasith Malinga
Dilhara Fernando
Ashish Nehra

Reliance Industries(Mukesh Ambani) bought Mumbai franchise, supposed to be on the most fought franchise for a record $111.9 Million making it the most expensive franchise in IPL.

Sachin Tendulkar will lead the team and start his carrer in new format of the game. India’s team manger during there triumph at ICC t20 world cup, Lalchand Rajput will coach the team. Harsha Bhogle and few other noted crickets will help the team as support staff

They exhausted there resources buying Harbhajhan Singh for a whooping $850,000 and were left with inexperienced wicket keepers .

Strengths – Good bating squad with some quality allrounders like Sanath Jayasurya, Pollock and

Weakness – Wicket keepers, I Don’t think Harbhajan Singh is worth the money they spend, he may have a dull IPL keeping in view of the flat pitches. T20’s need alrounders

Star Players – Wo else than sachin, need to see how master blaster do in T20’s. Sanath Jayasuriya and Robin Uthappa one of the hard hitting cricketers

Prediction – Will be in Top 4

Schedule

Owner: Shah Rukh Khan
Official Website: http://www.kolkataknightriders.com
Captain: Sourav Ganguly
Coach: John Buchanan

Batsmen:
Sourav Ganguly
David Hussey
Ricky Ponting
Salman Butt
Akash Chopra
Cheteshwar Pujara
Rohan Banerjee
Yashpal Singh
Debabrata Das

Wicket Keepers / All Rounders:
Tatenda Taibu
Wriddhiman Saha
Brendon McCullum
Chris Gayle
Ajit Agarkar
Mohammad Hafeez
Iqbal Abdulla
Laxmi Ratan Shukla

Bowlers:
Ishant Sharma
Shoaib Akhtar
Murali Kartik
Umar Gul
Siddharth Kaul
Ranadeb Bose
Sourashish Lahiri

Kolkata Team is best of bolywood and cricket a killer combo to enthrall sports loving Bengalis Sharukh Khan bought Kolkota franchise for $79.09 million and will be captained by none another than Sourav Ganguly and coached by ex Australian all-conquering team from 1999-2007, John Buchanan. Their main sponsor is Nokia.

SRK already got frustrated in running a franchise and is going all out and will buy away match tickets for his Kolkata Knight Riders’ team fans(First day ticket sales – 237). Despite charging only Rs.100 per ticket and promise of Sharukh himself handing over the ticket to every 1000th ticket buyer, people of Kolkata have yet not shown any keen interest in IPL.

Coming to the squad the most intresting part will be – watching Sourav, Ricky Ponting and Ishant Sharma representing the same team

In Shoaib’ Akhtar’s absence, Kolkata Knight Riders is banking on another Pakistani pacer, Umar Gul, and Ajit Agarkar to head bowling attack

Strengths – Ishanth Sharma one of the furious fast bowler in business. Gayle –Brendon McCullum T20 Opening combination. You can never strike off ricky. Lucky enough to got him at such low price.

Weakness – Lost Shoaib Akthar otherwise they would have a great fast bowling line up. Wasted money on second keeper Taibu,

Star Players – Ishanth sharma for sure. I bet on Ricky Ponting to spear head batting attack

Prediction – May reach semi finals

Kings XI Punjab

Owner: Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia etc
Official Website: http://www.kings11punjab.com

Captain: Yuvraj Singh
Coach: Tom Moody

Batsmen:
Yuvraj Singh
Mahela Jayawardena
Ramnaresh Sarwan
Simon Katich
Luke Pomersbach
Karan Goel
Uday Kaul
Tanmay Shrivastava
Sahil Kukreja
Sunny Sohal

Wicket Keepers / All Rounders:
Kumar Sangakarra
Irfan Pathan
Ramesh Powar
James Hopes
Pankaj Dharmani
Nitin Saini
Wilkin Mota

Bowlers:
Brett Lee
S Sreesanth
Piyush Chawla
VRV Singh
Kyle Mills
Ajitesh Argal
Rishi Dhawan

The Mohali team,Kings XI Punjab is owned by Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, Karan and Mohit Burman for $76 million investment this is the second cheapest franchise. Led by there icon player Yuvraj Singh and coached by former Aussie all rounder Tom Moody

The team is very young overall, with only 3 players being above 30 years of age and I guess they got some very good underdogs

They recently signed Shaun Marsh, the Western Australia top-order batsman and new entrant in Australian team. Marsh is son of ex aussie opener Geoff Marsh and the leading run scorer in Australia’s domestic Twenty20 competition in 2007-08. He made 290 runs at 58 with a strike-rate of 142.15 and was awarded Western Australia’s Player of the Year. I guess Shaun Marsh will emerge as star after IPL, what a pick by Mohali Team

Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills will play four Twenty20 games for Mohali Team before joining the New Zealand squad on their tour of England on May 1. The batting lineup looks solid with srilankan duo Mahela Jaywardhane and Kumar Sangakarra, Yuvraj Singh, Shaun Marsh and Under 19 wordcup highest scorer Tanmay Srivastava.

Bret lee will lead the bowling atackt and with sreeshanth in the team you can always except some pun, would be interesting to see if he will show off his monkeys acts against Indian players in other teams. Piyush Chawla will come handy in Indian pitches

Strengths – balanced side with lot of underdogs, picked right players at right players instead of going after big names

Weakness – Bowling line up will be tested, yuvraj singh is not looking great these days, lack of wicket takers except Bret lee

Star Players – Yuvraj Singh, Bret lee and Sangakara. Betting on Shaun Marsh

Prediction – 4-6 , may end up if key players clicked in right time

Owner: GMR Holdings
Official Website: http://www.delhidaredevils.com
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_DareDevils

Captain: Virender Sehwag
Coach: Greg Shipperd

Batsmen:
Virender Sehwag
Tillakratne Dilshan
Gautam Gambhir
Manoj Tiwary
Shikhar Dhawan

Wicket Keepers / All Rounders:
Dinesh Karthik
AB de Villiers
Daniel Vettori
Shoaib Malik
Farveez Maharoof
Rajat Bhatia
Mithun Manhas
Mayank Tehlan

Bowlers:
Mohammad Asif
Glenn McGrath
Brett Geeves
Pradeep Sangwan
Yo Mahesh

GMR Holdings bagged Delhi Franchise rights for $84 million and will be captained by Sehwag in the Indian Premier League. Notable absentees include young bowling sensation Ishant Sharma because of “high price” attached to him(grabbed by Kolkata Knight Riders for a whopping US$ 950,000). Delhi is one of the youngest team in IPL and a really good fielding squad.

Delhi Dare devils has eight international cricketers and except Maharoof and Brett Geeves would find a place in final eleven. GMR got these international players at a pretty good prices but could not understand there logic on buying Manoj Tiwary for a whooping USD 675,000 who is yet to prove his talent in international cricket , poor Glen McGrath got only USD 350,000 and Ab de Villiers got only USD 300,000

Lack of hard hitters in middle order can cost Delhi Dare devils heavily.

Akshay Kumar has been signed on by the Delhi Daredevils as its brand ambassador and Hero Honda will be main sponsor.

Strengths – Full of underdogs, Gautham Ghambir and Sehwag opening combination, great bowling line up

Weakness – lack of proper strategy at bidding, very brittle middle order, inexperience squad, no hard hitters in lower middle order

Star Players – Sehwag and Gambhir need to meet fans expectations. AB de Villiers is looking good and Glen McGrath may still have his accuracy and rhythm

Prediction – May reach semi finals, if Sehwag, Gambhir and there bowlers fired. Or end up somewhere between 4-6

Schedule –

Sat 19 Apr Delhi Daredevils v Rajasthan Royals

Tue 22 Apr Deccan Chargers v Delhi Daredevils

Sun 27 Apr Kings XI Punjab v Delhi Daredevils

Wed 30 Apr Delhi Daredevils v Bangalore Royal Challengers

Fri 2 May Chennai Super Kings v Delhi Daredevils

Sun 4 May Mumbai Indians v Delhi Daredevils

Thu 8 May Delhi Daredevils v Chennai Super Kings

Sun 11 May Rajasthan Royals v Delhi Daredevils

Tue 13 May Kolkata Knight Riders v Delhi Daredevils

Thu 15 May Delhi Daredevils v Deccan Chargers

Sat 17 May Delhi Daredevils v Kings XI

Mon 19 May Bangalore Royal Challengers v Delhi Daredevils

Thu 22 May Delhi Daredevils v Kolkata Knight Riders

Sat 24 May Delhi Daredevils v Mumbai Indians

Bangalore Royal Challengers

Owner: Vijay Mallya
Official Website: http://www.royalchallengers.com/
Captain: Rahul Dravid

Coach: Venkatesh Prasad

Franchise cost: $111.6 Million

Batsmen:
Rahul Dravid
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Wasim Jaffer
Misbah-ul-Haq
Ross Taylor
Arun Kumar
Appanna KP
Bharat Chipli

Wicket Keepers / All Rounders:
Mark Boucher
Shreevats Goswami
Devraj Patil
Jacques Kallis
Cameron White
Sunil Joshi
Akhil B.
Virat Kohli

Bowlers:
Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan
Nathan Bracken
Dale Steyn
Praveen Kumar
Abdur Razzak
Vinay Kumar

Bangalore Royal challengers represent Garden city, Bangalore and owned by liquor baron Vijaya Mallya, needlessly to say the Bangalore team was named after UB brand Royal challenge. As said by Mallya “The platform is completely in line with the Royal Challenge profile and brand dynamics. The objective is to further strengthen the Royal Challenge consumer equity.”

South Africa’s Jacques Kallis at $900,000 became the costliest player to be selected to play for the Royal Challengers and Rahul Dravid is there icon player. It will be interesting to see how rahul adopts to T20’s. Notable misses from the team include Robin Uthappa.

The team is more suited for test mataches – Jaffer, Dravid, kumble. I thought Sunil Joshi left international cricket years back, he is a surprise entrant in the Bangalore squad

Strength – Vijay Mallya, a no nonsense sports loving guy, if he finds potential in IPL, he will pour money and can make it a winner team and brand

Weakness – Lack of T20 batsmen, inexperienced squad

Star Players – Misbah-ul-Haq. Need no introduction almost single handedly bought Pakistan to victory in t20 finals. Bracken, Kallis, Boucher may come handy. no bowling sensation Praveen Kumar will be tested

Prediction – My bet they will end up somewhere between 5-7. If at all IPL have test version Bangalore team is my favorite choice

Schedule – April 20: Mumbai v Royal Challengers at Mumbai

April 26: Royal Challengers v Jaipur at Bangalore

April 28: Royal Challengers v Chennai at Bangalore

April 30: Delhi v Royal Challengers at Delhi

May 3: Hyderabad v Royal Challengers at Hyderabad

May 5: Royal Challengers v Mohali at Bangalore

May 8: Mohali v Royal Challengers at Mohali

May 10: Jaipur v Royal Challengers at Jaipur May

12: Royal Challengers v Delhi at Delhi

May 15: Chennai v Royal Challengers at Chennai

May 12: Royal Challengers v Hyderabad at Bangalore