Google Buys Live TV Rights to 2010 IPL
Google's Live Internet Video Streaming Website - YouTube, will have exclusive rights to play the 2010 Indian Premier League. Money will be made from advertising. This is fantastic news for people with fast broadband internet.
What do you think?
article by Robert Andrews
Google has confirmed yesterday’s reports - YouTube has inked rights from the big-money Indian Premier League’s (IPL) licensing partner Global Cricket Ventures to live-stream all 60 matches of the 45-day tournament, starting March 12.
It’s YouTube’s first deal to live-stream a big global sport - no mere domestic competition, IPL is the largest cricket tournament in the world, forecast to generate Read the rest of this entry...
Bosman smashed English bowlers in both games
A week ago, I had predicted that the T20I series between England and South Africa would be rather close and should end in a 1-1 score-line here. As it turned out, the prediction wasn’t too far off the mark as the sides traded games and in the end the series was tied.
The two matches were played at Johannesburg and Centurion respectively, the same venues that the Champions Trophy had used. In that tournament, the pitch at Centurion had turned out to be a run-fest, whereas that at Wanderers in Johannesburg was the one on which the bowlers had a gala-time. As it turned out in the series, both the pitches were so full of runs that it almost seemed like the bowlers were there to fill in the number only.
In the first match, South Africa elected to field on the premise that it is rather difficult to set targets in a T20 game on a flat-as-a-pancake pitch. Their decision almost worked as Joe Denly was dismissed off the very first ball, but first Jonathon Trott – playing in the country of his birth – and then Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan smacked the hosts around to get to 202/6 in the twenty overs. Morgan was at his merciless best and got to an unbeaten 45-ball 85.
South Africa replied equally strongly with Graeme Smith and his new opening partner, Loots Bosman, adding 97 in less than nine overs. One wicket brought two, but the South Africans looked good to get to their total, when it started to drizzle. At the end of 12 overs, the South Africans were a couple of runs ahead of the target, but a superb over from Anderson brought them a run behind the par score when the heavens opened for good. The match ended there, with the Proteas going down by one run!
They made a fine comeback in the second game as Bazooka Bosman - as he is known - continued his supreme touch to seal Heschelle Gibbs’ ouster – for the time being. His 94 came off only 45 balls, and by the time he was out, the South Africans had scored 170 in only 13 overs! They ended with 241 to their name – lest one forgets, this was in 20 overs only – and then restricted the English side to 157/8 in their twenty overs to easily win the game. Trott scored his first half century in T20Is.
The good news for England was the return of Kevin Pietersen after being out of the game for more than six months due to an Achilles Heel injury.
In the meantime, the IPL committee met in Bangkok to discuss the details of the next season of the IPL. What has emerged is that the players will not be able to sign contracts with the IPL and not feature in the tournament on the grounds of playing for domestic cricket back home. In fact, apart from injuries or international commitments – and extreme scenarios – the players will have to honour their commitment to the league through its entire duration. The rationale behind this has been the move is said to be the advancing of the league to February-March instead of April-May. Many of the domestic competitions are still on, especially in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
There was also an announcement that seven out of the eight franchises have agreed to the inclusion of the extra teams in the fourth season of the IPL. Apparently, Chennai Super Kings has opposed the move so far.
And to end the piece, another piece of trivia for you. South Africa’s 241/6 in the twenty overs was the second highest total in a T20I, behind Sri Lanka’s 260/6 in 20 overs against Kenya in the first edition of the ICC World T20. The highest total ever chased successfully in a T20I is 208 by South Africa against West Indies – again, in the ICC World T20 in 2007.
One of the best batsmen on display
As the cricket fans around the world brace themselves for the third season of the Indian Premier League, the little known Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament got underway last month in India. The league stage of the tournament ended with ten teams making it to the second stage. The second round of the tournament will be played next year from the 12th of March – coincidentally, the same day as the third edition of the Indian Premier League!
The Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament is an inter-state, domestic T20 tournament in India. The first season was supposed to happen last season, but did not take off due to the lack of dates in the calendar! The format of the trophy is based on that of the Ranji trophy, where teams from every zone in the country – North, East, West, South and Central – play against sides from their own zone. The top two sides from every zone at the end of the round robin qualify for the second stage with six of the those ten getting a bye into the quarter-finals, while the remaining four fighting it out in the pre-quarter-final knock-out.
The biggest news of the tournament came in the form of Rajasthan not being allowed to play in the tournament because of the issues within the state association. This meant that the Central Zone had only four sides vying for the two slots for the next round. Madhya Pradesh won all their three games, while Railways won two of theirs to qualify for the next round.
Both North Zone and South Zone were expected to be the toughest groups given that each of them had six teams each. This would have made qualification for the two sides even more difficult. As it turned out, the South Zone games were badly hit by rain as nine out of the 15 were declared no-result. Amidst this, Tamil Nadu won the two games it managed to play – with three abandoned – against lowly Kerala and Goa, while Hyderabad needed only one. The Hyderabad side had four of its matches rained off and still managed to get through to the next round! The only match it won had Ambati Rayadu score a half century – a joyous moment for the ICL-return youngster. Karnataka shot itself in the foot as they lost to Goa, thanks to Swapnil Asnodkar’s 48-ball 71 and lost out on the second round.
The North Zone was keenly fought. Going into the last round of games, there were four teams which had the chance of making it to the next round; Punjab (12 points before the last game), Himachal Pradesh (12), Haryana (8), Jammu and Kashmir (4), Delhi (12), Services (0). Despite playing the bottom placed side, Delhi was stretched to the limit by Services, before winning by eight runs and going through. Himachal Pradesh then beat Punjab to get to 16 points as well and snuffed out any chances that Haryana could have had by beating J&K.
The East Zone was the closest of the lot. Three teams, Jharkhand, Assam and Orissa ended with three wins each – out of the four games played. Amongst themselves as well, Assam beat Orissa, Orissa overcame Jharkhand, whereas Jharkhand outplayed Assam! Unfortunately for the Oriyans, they finished third in the group, thanks to a lesser net run rate than the other two. In fact, they fell short of Assam’s NRR by 0.1! Saurabh Tiwary was the captain of the Jharkhand T20 side, and so impressed were the selectors with his leadership skills, that he has also been appointed as the skipper of the side for the longer format of the game – the Ranji trophy.
In the West Zone, Wasim Jaffer’s strong display with the bat ensured that Mumbai ran away to three wins in as many games before losing to Maharashtra. By that time, though, they had already qualified for the second round, while Maharashtra followed soon after with wins over Mumbai and Baroda.
Assam will now play Railways and Jharkhand will take on Himachal Pradesh in the pre-quarters, with the respective winners taking on Delhi and Tamil Nadu in the quarter finals. The other two quarter finals will have Hyderabad face Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh play Maharashtra.
Abahani Limited are the Dhaka Premier Division T20 champions, Abahani Limited v Gazi Tank, Dhaka Premier Division T20 Tournament final, Mirpur, October 21, 2009
Which CLT20 Team's Cheerleaders are These Girls?
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Online shops like eBay and Overstock are great places to find cricket bats at discounted prices. Luckily, over at T20 Shop they take the effort out of it by sorting lists of results for cricket bats to show you how easy it is.
Shane Warne has called out to put an end to the fifty overs format and have only test matches and the T20s being played. According to the former leg-spinner from Australia, the fifty overs format is past its sell-by date and it does not make too much sense to continue playing it.
Warne accepted that it was a big call to make – given the history – but had no doubts that it had ceased to be interesting enough.
In fact, the T20 cricket was introduced by England after the first class features in the four-day and forty overs cricket was found to be dying a slow death and hence the counties had been running into huge losses. With the introduction of the T20 cricket, the coffers have been buzzing again for the counties.
There have been many such calls in the past as well, but the ICC has not yet come out with a statement regarding this.
According to me, it is difficult to put a format to sleep, especially if the audiences still flock to watch the game and if there is a market for it. It also does seem that between redundant test matches and ODIs, the former will be the first to die, but having an ODI series with seven matches was clearly over-stepping the limits, especially after an exciting Ashes series like the one played earlier.
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The IPL has asked its franchises to directly deal with the concerned players instead of going through the player agents. This new rule has been brought about because the IPL had received many complaints about agents promising many cricketers from the various countries in the world about an IPL berth.
Another reason that experts put forward is the fact that many of the ICL players have rejoined the main fold and this has caused many contracts to be negotiated between these players’ agents and the franchise. The BCCI had set a limit of Rs.8-20 lakh for these ICL players, but it has been said that the rule may have been violated.
There have been complaints to the effect of the agents signing up upcoming cricketers for the IPL, but not in the prescribed format of the contract which has been specified by the IPL. The IPL has now asked the franchises to re-register all the players’ contracts and also make it known to the governing council of all their signings in the recent times, by the 25th of August.
The IPL has then said that they “will then update the player registry and publish a finalised list of registered players with the league on August 27”
BCCI set to pay $5m to Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals
The BCCI has set a compensation for the two IPL teams who missed out on the Champions League last year because of its cancellation. Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals, who had made it to the finals of the first ever IPL and in the process qualified for the Champions League of 2008 have been allocated $5 million each by the BCCI as compensation for the cancellation of the tournament due to terrorists attacks.
The rules stipulate that there will not be any compensation that the Champions League will provide to any team because of cancellation. However, if the respective cricket board from a country deems it fit, they can dole out money as compensation to their own team. In this case, the BCCI has invoked this clause in making the payout.
However, not all members within the BCCI are happy with this, as they say that this could create a bad precedent. There is also a question of the amount of compensation which the teams have been paid, which is much more than what they would have earned even if they would have played in the tournament! However, there is another school of thought that says that the BCCI is justified in helping out its stake holders and hence, the payout makes sense.
