IPL the new face of Cricket

18th April 2008, marked the start of the IPL – Indian Premier League for 20/20 cricket games. The first game was inaugurated with the razzle and dazzle of American football with cheerleaders and Bollywood all mixed on the same platform to provide an hugely entertaining start to the league.

The IPL is the brainchild of Lalit Modi, the vice-president of the BCCI. The league is is modelled along the lines of club football in Europe, specifically the English Premier League. Huge investments have been made in this league and big money offered to star players to take part.

The first game was between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Bangalore Royal Challengers and included a record score of 158 runs in 20/20 cricket by Kiwi star Brendan McCullum, which led to a 223-3 win for the Kolkata Knight Riders by 140 runs.

The league has attracted world-wide attention especially from the cricketing fraternity and fans everywhere, due to the publicity and specific ownership of two of the teams in the league. Namely, the Kolkata Knight Riders who are owned by Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan and co-owned by actress Juhi Chawla and husband Jai Mehta and Kings 11 Punjab who are owned by Bollywwod actress Priety Zinta and co-owned by Ness Wadia (great grandson of Mohd. Ali Jinnah – founder of Pakistan).

The league consists teams that have gone through player auctions to sign some of the big names in international cricket. Here is a list of the IPL teams, coaches, their players and respective countries.

Kings XI Punjab

• Coach: Tom Moody.
• Players: India – Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Karan Goel, Uday Kaul, Tanmay Srivastava, Sahil Kukreja, Sunny Sohal, Ramesh Powar, Pankaj Dharmani, Nitin Saini and Wilkin Mota.
  Austrailia – Brett Lee, Luke Pomersbach,Simon Katich, James Hopes and Shaun Marsh.
  New Zealand – Kyle Mills.
  West Indies – Ramnaresh Sarwan.
  Sri Lanka – Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara.

Deccan Chargers

• Coach: Robin Singh.
• Players: India – VVS Laxman, RP Singh, Rohit Sharma, Venugopala Rao, Pragyan Ojha, Halhadar Das, Arjun Yadav, Paidikalva Vijay Kumar, Dwaraka Ravi Teja, Kalyan Krishna, Sanjay Bangar and Sarveesh Kumar.
  Australia – Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds.
  Sri Lanka – Chaminda Vaas, Chamara Silva and Nuwan Zoysa.
  Pakistan – Shahid Afridi.
  South Africa – Hershelle Gibbs.
  New Zealand – Scott Styris.

Bangalore Royal Challengers

• Coach: Venkatesh Prasad.
• Players: India – Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Wasim Jaffer, Praveen Kumar, Sunil Joshi, B Akhil, Vinay Kumar, Devraj Patil, Bharat Chipli, KP Appanna, B Arun Kumar, Virat Kohli and Sreevats Goswami.
  South Africa – Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Dale Steyn.
  Australia – Nathan Bracken and Cameron White.
  Pakistan – Misbah-ul Haq.
  New Zealand – Ross Taylor.
  West Indies – Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
  Bangladesh – Abdur Razzak (Bangladesh).

Rajasthan Royals

• Coach: Shane Warne.
• Players: India – Mohammad Kaif, Munaf Patel, Anoop Revandkar, Taruwar Kohli, Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Niraj Patel, Sumit Khatri, Pankaj Singh, Siddharth Trivedi and Swapnil Asnodkar.
  Austrailia – Shane Warne, Justin Langer, Shane Watson and Darren Lehmann.
  Pakistan – Younis Khan, Sohail Tanvir and Kamran Akmal.
  South Africa – Graeme Smith and Morne Morkel.
  England – Dimitri Mascarenhas.

Delhi DareDevils

• Coach: Greg Shipperd.
• Players: India – Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rajat Bhatia, Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik, Manoj Tiwary, Mithun Manhas, Mayank Tehlan, Yo Mahesh and Pradeep Sangwan.
  Australia – Glenn McGrath and Brett Geeves.
  Pakistan – Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Malik.
  Sri Lanka – Tillakaratne Dilshan, Farveez Maharoof.
  South Africa – AB de Villiers.
  New Zealand – Daniel Vettori.

Kolkata Knight Riders

• Coach: John Buchanan.
• Players: India – Akash Chopra, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohan Banerjee, Yashpal Singh, Debabrata Das, Sourav Ganguly, Wriddhiman Saha, Brendon McCullum, Ajit Agarkar, Iqbal Abdulla, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ishant Sharma, Murali Kartik, Umar Gul, Siddarth Kaul, Ranadeb Bose and Sourashish Lahiri.
  Pakistan – Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafeez.
  Australia – David Hussey and Ricky Ponting.
  West Indies – Chris Gayle.
  Zimbabwe – Tatenda Taibu.

Mumbai Indians

• Coach: LalchandRajput.
• Players: India – Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Abhishek Nayar, Ajeenkya Rahane, Gaurav Dhiman, Ankeet Chauhan, Ashish Nehra, Pinal Shah, Dhaval Kulkarni, Manish Pandey, Musavir Khote, Rajesh Pawar, Rohan Raje, Saurabh Tiwary, Sidharth Chitnis, Yogesh Takawale, Swapnil Singh and Vikrant Yelligeti.
  Sri Lanka – Sanath Jayasuriya, Dilhara Fernando and Lasith Malinga.
  South Africa – Shaun Pollock, Loots Bosman and Ashwell Prince.
  Australia – Luke Ronchi and Dominic Thornely.

Chennai Super Kings

• Coach: Keppler Wessels.
• Players: India – Suresh Raina, S Badrinath, Parthiv Patel, Joginder Sharma, Lakshmipathi Balaji, Napolean Einstein, Abhinav Mukund, Sudeep Tyagi, Rashwin, Viraj Kadbe, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Anirudha Srikkanth, P Amarnath, S Sresh Kumar, Arun Karthik and Shadab Jakati.
  Australia – Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey.
  New Zealand – Stephen Fleming and Jacob Oram.
  South Africa – Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel.
  Sri Lanka – Muttiah Muralitharan.

There have been problems for English and Welsh players who are centrally contracted to join this super league. The English Cricket Board (ECB) made it abundantly clear that they would not sign No Objection Certificates for players—a prerequisite for playing in the IPL. As the timing of the league conflicted with England’s tour on New Zealand and the County Championship competition in the UK.

Check out the promotional videos for Shahrukh Khan’s team and Priety Zinta’s teams in our special CRICKET section which gives you live interactive scores of the matches and a superb gallery of pictures!