Cricket Blog

The Mumbai franchise is on a roll. A comprehensive win over the Knight Riders all thanks to Shaun Pollock with the ball and Sanath Jayasuriya with the bat later on.

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Shock win to Mumbai Indians who have got some momentum going now with two consecutive wins.

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First win for the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2008. Disappointing performance by Knight Riders. Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa seal the win with a match winning partnership. Terrific bowling by stand-in skipper Shaun Pollock.

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South Africa won the fourth match by 7 wickets to level the series 2-2. Winning the toss and deciding to bat first, Pakistan never got going with Afridi failing yet again at the top of the order. He went back without scoring. A fighting 82 from Younis Khan and decent contributions from Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal and Abdur Rehman ensured that Pakistan managed to reach a decent total.

South Africa, however, were clinical in their run chase. Graeme Smith ensured that South Africa got off to a good start and then he had a match-winning partnership with Shaun Pollock who was also very good with the ball earlier on. Both the batsmen made sure that the required run rate would not get out of control and actually ended the match with South Africa scoring at over a run a ball. The series now heads on to Lahore for the fifth and final match which is also going to be the decider in this closely fought series.

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More big names join IPL, the official league of the BCCI. The list now includes the following star players:

• Shaun Pollock - South Africa
• Jacob Oram - New Zealand
• Shoaib Akhtar - Pakistan
• Shane Warne - Australia
• Glenn McGrath - Australia
• Daniel Vettori - New Zealand
• Stephen Fleming - New Zealand
• Mahela Jayawardene - Sri Lanka
• Sanath Jayasuriya - Sri Lanka
• Graeme Smith - South Africa
• Mohammad Yousuf - Pakistan
• Brendan McCullum - New Zealand
• Shoaib Malik - Pakistan
• Younis Khan - Pakistan
• Mohammad Asif - Pakistan

The IPL boasts prize money of some $3 million and was created by the Indian cricket board to counter an unofficial version - the Indian Cricket League (ICL) - planned from next month.

The first edition of the IPL will feature eight franchise teams, with plans to extend that to 16 by 2010.

Each franchise will have a squad of 16 players to be comprised of local players, juniors, members of the Indian national squad and overseas professionals.

More pressure now on the ICL to compete with the IPL as a lot of big names have started to snub it off. But this was always going to happen. The ICL management should have worked with the BCCI rather than go against it. With the financial muscle behind the Indian board, the ICL will not have a long life, unfortunately.

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