If Lalit Modi and Dean Kino had added the word “International” to the Champions League T20, the tournament that is currently taking place in India could have replaced the now defunct ICL. Players from the now dead-and-buried ICL have scattered to different teams. Some ICLers, like Shane Bond, are back playing for club and country.

Meanwhile, the tournament that has been christened CLT20 is up and running. After the first edition was scrapped in the wake of 26/11, the CLT20-2009 has been in progress for almost a week now. While the cricket has been ok, CLT20 has certainly been providing air time to Lalit Modi and Bollywood!

Never mind the absence of Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Shilpa Shetty and Preity Zinta, whose teams — respectively Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings — were not good enough to be featured in CLT20. This despite the largesse — out of the goodness of Lalit Modi’s heart — to accommodate a 3rd team from the Indian IPL in CLT20 (as opposed to only two teams from Australia and South Africa, the trinity of countries that co-started the CLT20 concept).

But no worries! This edition of CLT20 continues its links with Bollywood, thank you very much! I wouldn’t have known that this was a deliberate ploy till I watched an interview with Bipasha Basu who was at one of the early games; I forget which one! Was this yet another Bollywood Super Bod trying to buy a team, I wondered? Alas no! This was just another one of Lalit Modi’s plans to continue the link between Bollywood and masala cricket. What do they call it now? Co-branding?

T20 and Bollywood are made for each other. Each idiom features a lot of dancing, some colour, some great bodies, lots of song, a booty shake or two, celebreties coming out of your ears and nostrils, a few tears, skimpy-glitzy clothes, some acting, loads of emotion (throw in a slap or two!), plenty of rah-rah, LOADS of money and some talent on view — that is, if you can be bothered enough to pay close attention amidst the chaos, the din, the fake drama and the Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 Australia, Bangalore Royal Challengers, Bollywood, Cape Cobras, Champions League T20, CLT20, Dean Kino, icl, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lalit Modi, Preity Zinta, Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Shah Rukh Khan, Shilpa Shetty, South Africa

A tussle between two cricket overlords results in epistolary fireworks

A Fight Of Egos

» Modi has become the face of Indian cricket. It has displeased BCCI bosses. Srinivasan and Manohar didn’t like him in any case.
» So, Srinivasan terminates the contract with IMG, which conceptualised and organised the IPL, because the BCCI working committee refused to ratify its fees, and IMG did not renegotiate the fees
» IMG says there are no grounds to terminate the contract
» Stung, Modi gets support from seven IPL franchises, turning it into a Modi+corporate world vs BCCI fight
» Modi also gets support from Sharad Pawar, the Mumbai Cricket Association chief and Manohar’s mentor. Pawar wants to have Mukesh Ambani on his side before the Maharashtra assembly election
» BCCI asks Manohar to look into the IMG issue and report to the BCCI’s AGM later this month

***

Pistols or swords? None, actually. The great duel of egos, for the control of the Indian Premier League (IPL), was fought with letters. N. Srinivasan, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, initiated his latest move to clip the wings of Lalit Modi with a wry missive that bore ill-news for the recipient. But, by the time the dust settled five days later, after frantic spree of letter-writing—10 of them at least, by the latest count—it was Modi who emerged as Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket BCCI, IMG, IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lalit Modi, Manohar, MCA, Mukesh Ambani, Mumbai Cricket Association, Rajasthan Royals, Shahrukh Khan, Sharad Pawar, Srinivasan

For a coach who wanted 4, or was it 11, captains for his team, it is no surprise that he couldn't settle on a single title for his book. John Buchanan's literary offering on cricket appears to have two titles on the cover. The Future of Cricket comes on top, The Rise of Twenty20, follows. That apart, the cover also has a strap line: When money talks, cricket listens. How big money, administrators are powering a new cricket world: an inside account. Phew! Can't this guy keep anything simple?

The book's juicy parts have already made national headlines. When you write adversely about Gavaskar, Harbhajan and Yuvraj, you are sure to grab eyeballs. And when you write lines such as in T20 "you have to be inventive, fearless. And I don't see those qualities as part of Sachin's make-up at this stage of his career. Sachin Tendulkar is still a great player, but not in this arena of T20," everybody is eager to find out what you say next.  Buchanan may have led KKR to the bottom but the book demonstrates his genius for marketing himself.

Reading the book one gets the impression that Buchanan is a mastermind at predicting the distant future. But he is not so adept at dealing with the present or the immediate future. He certainly didn't know that KKR will finish last in IPL2.  And that he will get the boot Read more...

Avijit Ghosh Australia Ajantha Mendis, Australian, Blogs.CMDN.com, Buchanan, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, damien martyn, Dravid, Duckworth-Lewis, Ganguly, IPL2, KKR, Kolkata Knight Riders, McGrath, Pietersen, Royal Challengers, Sachin Tendulkar, Shah Rukh Khan, Stuart McGill, T20 World Cup, Warne

Rejoice Kolkata Knight Rider fans! There's life after death. Coach John Boka-known, oops Buchanan, has been sacked.

Barring KKR, every IPL team will miss him. But for his genius, Ajantha Mendis might have played and won a few more games for KKR in IPL2. But for him, Umar Gul might have played more than a mere five matches in IPL1. Only the greatest of talent spotters would have ignored Mendis and opted for the Henriques and the Van Wyk's of the world.

Just look at the performances of Gul and Mendis in the T20 World Cup. They have been winning one game after another for their country. Read more...

Avijit Ghosh Twenty20 Australian, Buchanan, England, Gilchrist, Hayden, IPL2, KKR, Kolkata Knight Riders, McGrath, Mendis, SRK, Symonds

It’s been a week since the spectacular IPL final and the not so spectacular closing ceremony. You don’t need to be very smart to know that Deccan Chargers won a taut final after facing the ignominy of being the winners of the wooden spoon last year.

The runner-up was Royal Challengers, a team that was perhaps rightly branded last year as a test team and had finished seventh. They were not much different this year as the highly valued Kevin Pietersen, who was supposed to give momentum to the side as captain and key batsman, nearly derailed the challenge till Anil Kumble, the former test captain, stepped in to show the way with a little help from Ross Taylor to end up a close second. Read more…

Admin CMDN.com Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Flintoff, Anil Kumble, Deccan Chargers, IPL 2, Jacques Kallis, Kevin Pietersen, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lalit Modi, M. S. Dhoni, Mathew Hayden, Ross Taylor, Royal Challengers, Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne, T20, Twenty20, World Cup T20