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

Tickets for a day at a Lord’s Test can cost £100 – about six times as much as you would pay in Australia or India where the biggest venues are three times the size of the ‘home of cricket’

Lord’s was a 28,000 sell-out for the first four days of the second Test and more than three-quarters full for Monday’s play, which finished before lunch. Being there was a privilege, though, that cost the cricket lover an eye-watering £100, a price the England and Wales Cricket Board felt able to charge because of unanswerable demand.

The ECB say that a minimum of 50,000 tickets could have been sold for each of the opening three days at Lord’s, Cardiff’s Swalec Stadium for the first Test, or Edgbaston, Headingley and The Oval, the five grounds where the 2009 Ashes will be decided. But the ECB are unable to satisfy demand because English Test grounds are too small. While Lord’s is the largest international ground in this country, it will still be only the 16th largest regular Test venue in the world even when its proposed redevelopment is completed.

Wembley and Twickenham, the national football and rugby stadiums, are the wrong dimensions to convert into temporary grounds – unlike, say, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where 100,000 spectators can be packed in for cricket or Australian rules football. The MCG stages nearly 50 matches a year.

In 1953, 549,650 watched England win a five-match Ashes series 1-0, a record for the contest. Five years earlier, 158,000 saw Don Bradman’s Invincibles defeat England at Read more…

Administrator England Ashes, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cardiff, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, cricket stadium, Don Bradman, ECB, England, Giles Clarke, Grounds, Hampshire, Headingley, IPL, Lalit Modi, Lord's, Matthew Engel, MCG, Middlesex, Rahul Dravid, Rajasthan Royals, SWALEC, Twickenham, Wembley

With less than a week to go before the Ashes series begins, perhaps both teams might do us all the courtesy of telling us whether they think they are well prepared for the series or not? Anyone can make excuses after the event – let’s hear the truth before it all starts so that we can then judge the final outcome with all grudges and platitudes aired beforehand.

The graceful Damien Martyn, he of silken touch and impeccable balance with bat in hand, appears to lack that poise in a recent interview that is as clumsy as it is ungracious. In dissecting the 2005 Ashes loss, Martyn appears to be keen to join the list of cricketers who now view the John Buchanan era in a far less favourable light than at the height of the Australian dynasty.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not here to defend Buchanan or any other coach for that matter. I’m firmly in the camp of those who think that this modern preoccupation with multiple coaches and support staff is a case of massive overkill. Read more…

Administrator Ashes Ashes, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brad Hodge, Buchanan, Cricket, damien martyn, England, Lord's, Pietersen, Ponting, Rajasthan Royals, Ravi Bopara, Shane Warne

Younus Khan is the flavour of the season. Having led Pakistan to World Twenty20, the new captain cool has set his sights on higher goals. He spoke to DNA from Colombo on the targets his side has set, the problems in his country and the original captain cool MS Dhoni.

What worked for you in England?
There was no pressure on us. Nobody was expecting us to reach the semifinals, leave aside winning the tournament. There were no media persons hanging around our team. We had a lot of time to concentrate on our jobs. Unlike, say, the Indians we had a lot of freedom.

So you say you were not scared of losing?
We were second last time. We were on the verge of winning the final against India Read more…

Administrator Pakistan Afridi, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Final, Imran Khan, Indian team., IPL, Javed Miandad, MS Dhoni, Pakistan, Rajasthan Royals, semifinal, Wasim Akram, Younus Khan