Cricket Blog

Bad luck for the Knight Riders as Chennai won by Duckworth Lewis calculation. Excellent batting from Salman Butt goes in vain. Parthiv Patel and Stephen Fleming gave the Chennai side a terrific opening stand.

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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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First of all, what the hell are these two? IPL - Indian Premier League, official Twenty20 league of the BCCI. ICL - Indian Cricket League, backed by the Essel group and not recognized by the BCCI or the ICC.

It is now reported that Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Stephen Fleming have all signed up to the IPL for significantly less amounts as compared to what the ICL was offering.

The IPL is based on the US NBA franchise model where each team pays the BCCI a fee to participate in the league. The BCCI in turn gives access to shared revenues and the right to exploit exclusive revenue streams.

The winner of the league will then play in the Champions League which comprises of teams from Australia, England, India and South Africa. The inaugural tournament for the Champions League has been slated for October 2008. This is also the first time that domestic teams from different countries will officially participate against one another. The top two teams from each country will play against one another.

As per information obtained from Cricinfo.com the overall prize money for the Twenty20 Champions League will be $5 million, the winners taking home $2 million. There will be $3 million up for grabs in the IPL. By contrast, the winners of the ICC World Cup in the Caribbean took home $1 million; the team that wins the current ICC World Twenty20 will take home half of that. That is a lot of money we are talking about.

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Shane Warne recently released his list of the top 50 players, naming Sachin Tendulkar as the best player. Here is the list:

1. Sachin Tendulkar
2. Brian Lara
3. Curtly Ambrose
4. Allan Border
5. Glenn McGrath
6. Wasim Akram
7. Muthiah Muralitharan
8. Ricky Ponting
9. Mark Taylor
10. Ian Healy

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New Zealand won their first match in the World Cup today. After being set 210 for victory, the Kiwis reached the target with 54 balls and 6 wickets in hand. The star performers for New Zealand were Scott Styris (87 not out and 2 wickets) and Jacob Oram (63 not out and 1 wicket).

After winning the toss, and after their successful run chases against Australia recently, Stephen Fleming had no hesitation in electing to field first. The result was early English wickets falling and the score reduced to 52-3, before Pieterson and Collingwood came up with a much needed partnership of 81 runs. However, both departed quickly and the England suffered a major middle order collapse as Flintoff went for a duck. In a matter of a few balls, England scorecard went from 133-3 to 138-7. And then came Nixon and Plunkett, two unlikely saviors. Both remained unbeaten and took the final score to 209-7.

New Zealand, on their part started disastrously, with Vincent, Fleming and Taylor departing in quick succession to leave the Kiwi middle order a huge task to win the match. At 19-3, Vaughan must be thinking that England have an excellent chance to win this match. However Styris and McMillan had other ideas. They kept the scorecard ticking and just when New Zealand looked like they were gaining momentum, Panesar got McMillan to heave a catch at deep cover. In came Jacob Oram and shared an unbeaten stand of 138 runs with Styris to seal the match.

Click here for New Zealand vs England scorecard
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