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Further to the growing list of players joining the two leagues, more Australians have confirmed signing up to the IPL. The ever-growing list now also includes the following:

1. Ricky Ponting
2. Andrew Symonds
3. Brett Lee
4. Nathan Bracken
5. Michael Hussey
6. Adam Gilchrist
7. Brad Haddin
8. Matthew Hayden
9. Mitchell Johnson
10. Simon Katich
11. Jason Gillespie

This would seem like a reverse immigration to me to see so many Australians moving to India to play cricket. A few of them are on their final lap in their international career and the IPL offers an opportunity to move beyond Test and ODI cricket. Another outcome of this is going to be the different skills that they will eventually bring to Indian cricket. The above list of players have signed up for a total of $2,000,000 to be paid by the BCCI.

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This news report on Hindustan Times clams that the Australian public is gearing up to give the Indian players a taste of the same medicine that was dished out to Andrew Symonds. Which is really sad considering that 4-5 spectators in a general crowd of over 50,000 have caused a major headache for the organizers. Indian spectators have, in general, been extremely hospitable to the visiting teams.

The really pathetic part in all this is, if Australian spectators also resort to heckling and racism then they are just going to prove that what those few Indians did was right. The Australians should, in fact, lead by example and show that there is no racism in this great country. Otherwise, its just going to sour relations further and events like this can quickly transgress into the very social fabric of the country.

Post your comments/views on this latest controversy to hit the game.

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So there is a new Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies. So its going to be a cash bonanza for the winner. So what. Why is the ICC making a big deal out of this? Well probably because not a single penny goes to their coffers. And the winner gets 4 times what a the World Cup had as its prize for all teams. No wonders ICC is shit-scared at the moment. The highly bureaucratic setup has come in for quite a bit of criticism from the Indian board in recent times. The World Cup itself was criticized for being far too long.

Here are some key points of the Twenty20 cup sponsored by Sir Allen Stanford, a Texan billionaire:

• It is a knockout tournament
• 4 participating nations
• Winning players to take 15 million AUD(Australian Dollars)
• Winning board gets 5 million AUD
• The other 3 participating teams get 1 million AUD each
• Event to be held next year
• Australia, India, South Africa and Sri Lanka invited

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