IPL second season auction on February 6

Mumbai: The auction of new players for the Indian Premier League's second edition will be held on February 6 without a ceiling on the number of "uncapped" cricketers a franchise can acquire, the cash-rich Twenty20 League's governing body said today.

"A player auction will be held on February 6, 2009 for new players that did not feature in the IPL 2008 season. All overseas players will, however, require an NOC to play in the IPL," the IPL governing body said in a statement.

"Outside the auction process but subject to the squad composition rules with respect to overseas players, each franchise will have the option to purchase any number of uncapped new players by a direct agreement," it added.

Uncapped players will be the ones who have never played senior international cricket nor have a central contract with their National Association.

Each franchise will have a sum of USD two million to spend on player fees in 2009 for cricketers acquired either in the auction, through signing uncapped new players or re-signing any 2008 temporary replacements.

The decisions were made at a meeting of the franchises here yesterday to apprise them about the player trading regulations for the 2009 season. The IPL trading window opens on December 22.

"Franchises shall have opportunities during the trading window to trade players -- either by offering to sell a player via trade or expressing an interest to acquire a player -- prior to any trading discussions the player's consent must be obtained," the statement read.

"Negotiations between two franchises should be only with regard to the player fee payable. The other terms of the Player Contract (for example the period of the contract) may not be varied," the statement added. "This meeting on the Player Trading Regulations is an important step in helping franchises redress the integral balance of their playing squads to make them more competitive," IPL commissioner Lalit Modi said in a statement.

"I am certain that the trading window set to open on Monday will see some active trading, which will only result in significantly improving the competitiveness of the franchises, making for an even more exhilarating and action packed season for the IPL fans in 2009," he added.

Apart from finalising the date of auction, it was decided that the number of international players in the playing XI of the participating teams will remain four. The IPL also decided not to allow temporary replacements by teams during the season.

"The maximum number of international players in each squad will be 10. However, the number of international players in the playing eleven would remain constant at four," the IPL said.

"Squads will not be allowed temporary replacements from 2009 onwards to cover partial unavailability of a player during the season. The only temporary replacements allowed will be in the situation where a player is completely unavailable for a whole IPL season," the statement read.

On the players' salary cap, the IPL said, "The 2008 salary cap will cease to have effect and no unused amount of the 2008 purse can be used in 2009." "There will be no cap on player fees payable to players acquired by the franchises during the trading window. The trading window is only for players who were part of the IPL in 2008."

During the trading of players on December 22, if more than one franchise is interested in buying a player, the selling franchise will negotiate with all interested.

"The selling franchise shall have the discretion as to which offer to accept. Each Franchise is restricted to purchasing a maximum aggregate of a total of four overseas and Team India players during the trading window subject always to the IPL squad composition rules. There is no limit on the number of players that a franchise can sell," the IPL said.

© Copyright 2008 PTI. All rights reserved.

A high-octane contest between two well-balanced teams is on the cards when table toppers Rajasthan Royals take on a confident Delhi Daredevils in the first semi-final of the Indian Premier League in Mumbai on Friday.

The teams, which finished first and fourth in the preliminary 56-game phase of the Twenty20 tournament, appear evenly matched ahead of what promises top-drawer stuff in front of a capacity crowd at the Wankhede stadium.

The team that holds its nerve better and grabs the chances that come its way will go through to the summit clash against the winners of the second semi-final, on May 31, between Punjab Kings Eleven and Chennai Super Kings.

The second semi-final will also be held at the Wankhede, while the final, on June 1, will be played at the D Y Patil stadium, which has a bigger crowd capacity.

The Shane Warne-led Rajasthan Royals, impregnable at home in Jaipur, had only three losses in their 14 preliminary phase outings and have a 1-1 head-to-head record against the Virender Sehwag-led Daredevils, who got into the last four after seven wins and 15 points to their credit.
Both lost their matches when Mumbai Indians hosted them at the D Y Patil, and must be hoping that a change in venue for the knock-out round will bring happy tidings.

While both teams depended on their top-orders to fire and pile big totals, their middle orders looked a bit under-prepared when the chips were down.

Tracks at the Wankhede for the IPL have helped the seam bowlers, providing lateral movement and extra bounce, and bowlers of the calibre of Delhi Daredevils' Glenn McGrath should relish rolling his arm over.

The battle between McGrath, with support from Sri Lankan Farveez Maharoof and V Yo Mahesh, and Rajasthan's successful innings launchers, Graeme (416 runs) and Swapnil Asnodkar, could be crucial to the game's outcome.

The same applies to the Sohail Tanvir-Shane Watson-Munaf Patel combine, which will be up against the marauding Delhi opening pair of Gautam Gambhir (523) and Sehwag (403), as well as another in-form batsman at number three, Shikhar Dhawan.

Tanvir, with his extra quick bowling arm action, similar to that of his Pakistani countryman Wasim Akram, is the revelation in the IPL. He was hardly collared by any batting line-up, as indicated by his superb haul of 21 wickets at just 10 runs per victim.

The left armer was outstanding, both in the beginning and at the death, and is a major threat that needs to be negotiated well by the Delhi batsmen, who did not play him in the previous two clashes.

Rajasthan possess a better spin attack in the great Warne and his understudies, Yousuf Pathan and Dinesh Salunkhe, while Delhi depend on Amit Mishra for the most part, with Sehwag chipping in with his off breaks. But seam bowlers are expected to play a bigger role at the Wankhede.

Delhi had a sizeable break of five days going into the semi-final while Rajasthan, without a few key players, including Warne, were outclassed by Punjab King's XI on Wednesday.

Winning the toss and fielding first has become the order of the day for matches that commence at 2000 IST and the trend is likely to continue on Friday.

Barring light drizzles, Mumbai has been largely rain-free and the IPL authorities must be hoping that the weather remains clear over the next few days. The high prevailing humidity though is an indicator that rain is around the corner.

Teams (from):

Delhi Daredevils: Virender (c), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Rajat Bhatia, A b de Villiers, Tillakratne Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Brett Geeves, Glenn McGrath, Farveez Maharoof, V Yo Mahesh, Mithun Manhas, Amit Mishra, Pradeep Sangwan, Mayank Tehlan, Manoj Tiwary.

Rajasthan Royals: Shane Warne (c), Graeme Smith, Swapnil Asnodkar, Kamran Akmal, Yousuf Pathan, Mohd. Kaif, Shane Watson, Ravindra Jadeja, Niraj Patel, Sohail Tanvir, Siddharth Trivedi, Pankaj Singh, Munaf Patel, Mahesh Rawat, Dinesh Salunkhe, Morne Morkel, Taruwar Kohli.

Umpires: Rudi Koerzen and Billy Bowden

Third umpire: Billy Doctrove

Match referee: J Srinath.


Source: http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2008/may/29semis.htm

Australia dump annual tri-series

Tuesday, 20 May , 2008, 12:05

Australia's triangular one-day cricket series, which has been played since the 1979-80 season, has been scrapped in favour of two five-match series against the visiting New Zealand and South African sides.

The decision, which had been expected, was confirmed when Cricket Australia (CA) announced its domestic international programme on Tuesday.

CA chief executive James Sutherland said he expected the two five-match series to generate immense public interest, even if the fourth and fifth matches were dead rubbers.

"There is huge demand for the Australian public to watch the Australian team play, no matter where they play," Sutherland told reporters.

"That level of anticipation no matter where the series is alive or not is there, (especially) when you consider the (Australian) team only comes once or twice to each capital city.

"The anticipation for each match will be there and I'm sure that ticket sales will reflect that. Hopefully those series will be well fought and go to the wire, but we can't control that."

The triangular series, which had witnessed a drop off in interest particularly with matches not involving Australia, was first played between West Indies, Australia and England during the 1979-80 season.

Australia had generally dominated the competition, though it had lost the finals of the last two series to England and India.

Ricky Ponting's team will open the season with two Tests against New Zealand in Brisbane and Adelaide before Daniel Vettori's side return home for their own programme.

New Zealand will return for five one-day internationals in early February, after Australia have completed a three-Test, five one-day international programme against South Africa.

The schedule also includes three Twenty20 internationals, two against South Africa and one against New Zealand.

"There is no disputing the popularity and the level of public interest in Twenty20 is very high," Sutherland added.

"I think we have got it just about right for Twenty20.

"Our position has always been with Twenty20 cricket is that we see great opportunity at the domestic level...and we anticipate that will grow, so we don't want to overdo Twenty20 cricket on the international scene."

Source: http://sify.com/sports/fullstory.php?id=14677540

ABOUT Indian Premier League (IPL) IPL 20:20

The BCCI launched the Indian Premier League (IPL) on the lines of football’s English Premier League and the National Basketball League (NBA) of the US.

The IPL is a professional Twenty20 cricket league created and promoted by the BCCI and backed by the ICC. The Twenty20 league is set to debut in April 2008, with eight teams comprising a minimum of 16 players each. The league will last for 44 days and will involve 59 matches.

The IPL works on a franchise-system based on the American style of hiring players and transfers. These franchises were put for auction, where the highest bidder won the rights to own the team, representing each city.

The auction for the same took place on January 24, 2008 and the total base price for the auction was $400 million. The auction went on to fetch $723.59 million.

The Mumbai franchise owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) was the most expensive franchise - fetching $111.9 million closely followed by Vijay Mallya’s United Breweries which paid $111.6 million for the Bangalore franchise .

Media house Deccan Chronicle won the Hyderabad chapter of the IPL for $107 million, while India Cements’ Chennai franchise cost $91 million.

Bollywood also made its presence felt with two of its leading stars bagging the ownership of their respective teams - Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla’s Red Chillies Entertainment buying out Kolkata for $75.09, while Preity Zinta and her beau Ness Wadia bought the Mohali team for $76 million.

GMR , the infrastructure development group which who are involved in a project for revamping the Delhi airport, bagged the ownership of the Delhi team for $84 million and the Emerging Media , consisting of its CEO Fraser Castellino, Manoj Badale and Lachlan Murdoch and other investors won the rights for the Jaipur franczhise for $67 million.

IPL Teams:

1) Bangalore Royal Challengers: The Bangalore team was bought by Vijay Mallya’s UB Group for $111.6 million to own the team for 10 years. ‘Icon player’ Rahul Dravid is the captain of Bangalore Royal Challengers. Team India’s bowling coach, Venkatesh Prasad is the coach of the team.

2) Kings XI Punjab: The Mohali team was bought by Bollywood diva Preity Zinta, her industrialist beau Ness Wadia, along with renowned industrialists Karan Paul and Mohit Burman for $76 million for a period of 10 years. ‘Icon player’ Yuvraj Singh is the captain of Kings XI Punjab. Australia’s Tom Moddy is the coach of the team.

3) Chennai Super Kings: The Chennai team was bought by India Cements for $91 million to own the team for 10 years. Team India ODI and T20 skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the captain of Chennai Super Kings. Former South Africa cricket team captain Kepler Wessels is the coach of the team.

4) Kolkata Knight Riders: The Kolkata team is owned by Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, actress Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta for $75.09 million for a 10-year period. ‘Icon player’ Sourav Ganguly is the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders. Australia’s John Buchanan is the coach of the team.

5) Deccan Chargers: The Hyderabad team was bought by Deccan Chronicle, a media house, for $107 million for a 10-year period. Team India’s Test player VVS Laxman is the captain of Deccan Chargers. India’s fielding coach, Robin Singh is the coach of the team.

6) Mumbai Indians: The Mumbai team is owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited for $111.9 million for a period of 10 years. ‘Icon player’ Sachin Tendulkar is the captain of Mumbai Indians. Former Team India manager, Lalchand Rajput is the coach of the team.

7) Delhi Daredevils: The Delhi team is owned by GMR Holdings for $84 million for a period of 10 years. ‘Icon player’ Virender Sehwag is the captain of Delhi Daredevils. Australia’s Greg Shipperd is the coach of the team.
Rajasthan Royals: The Jaipur team was bought by UK-based company Emerging Media for $67 million to own the team for a period of 10 years. Former Australian spin bowler Shane Warne is both the captain and coach of Rajasthan Royals.

More on IPL:

* Title Sponsorship Rights: On February 13 2008, Indian real estate developer DLF Universal secured exclusive rights to the IPL title sponsorship worth Rs 200 crore (over $50 million) for five years.

* Television Rights: On January 14 2008, it was announced that a consortium consisting of India’s Sony Television network and Singapore-based World Sports Group secured the rights of the IPL. The record deal has a duration of ten years at a cost of $1.026 billion.

* On February 20 2008 , the auction of 77 players took place in Mumbai. Team India ODI and Twenty20 skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds emerged the costliest Indian and overseas players respectively.

* Each team will play the other seven teams home and away, the top four teams at the end of the group stages will proceed through to the semi-finals. The first match is slated for April 18 between Team Bangalore and Team Kolkata.

* Team Composition: All teams must have at least four players from their respective Catchment Areas and four Under-22 players. The players from Catchment Areas could be an iconic player, a Ranji player or an U-22 player.

Each team can buy a maximum of eight overseas players but only four would be able to take the field in a match.

Source: http://premierleaguecricket.in/about/