The IPL Schedule.

The IPL Schedule is out. 44 days of exciting cricket, 59 matches of nail biting finishes. 8 teams pitted against each other, Sachin playing against Ganguly, Symonds against Hayden, Kolkata crowds cheering for Shoaib Akhtar such rare sights shall be a certain sight in the days to come. Twenty20 is here to stay.

The IPL schedule is here, all timings in IST. Subtract 12 from the timings to get it in standard 12 hr format, and all the matches are either in the afternoon or in the evening.

Please note the change in Schedule, due to the elections in Karnataka, match no. 31 will be played on May 28 as against the earler cited date May 10. And also note that the Bangalore matches have been Swapped. The Fixture table has been accordingly updated.

01.	Fri 18 APRIL- 19:00	- Bangalore v Kolkata, Bangalore
02.	Sat 19 APRIL- 15:00	- Mohali v Chennai, Mohali
03.	Sat 19 APRIL- 20:00	- IPL Delhi v Jaipur, Delhi
04.	Sun 20 APRIL- 15:00	- Mumbai v Bangalore, Mumbai
05.	Sun 20 APRIL- 20:00	- Kolkata v Hyderabad, Kolkata
06.	Mon 21 APRIL- 19:00	- Jaipur v Mohali, Jaipur
07.	Tue 22 APRIL- 19:00	- Hyderabad v Delhi - Hyderabad
08.	Wed 23 APRIL- 19:00	- Chennai v Mumbai - Chennai
09.	Thu 24 APRIL- 19:00	- Hyderabad v Jaipur - Hyderabad
10.	Fri 25 APRIL- 19:00	- Mohali v Mumbai - Mohali
11.	Sat 26 APRIL- 15:00	- Bangalore v Jaipur - Bangalore
12.	Sat 26 APRIL- 20:00	- Chennai v Kolkata - Chennai
13.	Sun 27 APRIL- 15:00	- Mumbai v Hyderabad - Mumbai
14.	Sun 27 APRIL- 19:00	- Mohali v Delhi - Mohali
15.	Mon 28 APRIL- 19:00	- Bangalore v Chennai - Bangalore
16.	Tue 29 APRIL- 19:00	- Kolkata v Mumbai - Kolkata
17.	Wed 30 APRIL- 19:00	- Delhi v Bangalore - Delhi
18.	Thu 1 MAY- 15:00	- Hyderabad v Mohali, Hyderabad
19.	Thu 1 MAY- 20:00	- Jaipur v Kolkata, Jaipur
20.	Fri 2 MAY- 19:00	-Chennai v Delhi, Chennai
21.	Sat 3 MAY- 15:00	- Hyderabad v Bangalore, Bangalore
22.	Sat 3 MAY- 20:00	- Mohali v Kolkata, Mohali
23.	Sun 4 MAY- 15:00	- Mumbai v Delhi, Mumbai
24.	Sun 4 MAY- 20:00	- Jaipur v Chennai, Jaipur
25.	Mon 5 MAY- 19:00	- Bangalore v Mohali, Bangalore
26.	Tue 6 MAY- 19:00	- Chennai v Hyderabad, Chennai
27.	Wed 7 MAY- 19:00	- Mumbai v Jaipur, Mumbai
28.	Thu 8 MAY- 15:00	- Delhi v Chennai, Delhi
29.	Thu 8 MAY- 20:00	- Kolkata v Bangalore, Kolkata
30.	Fri 9 MAY- 19:00	- Jaipur v Hyderabad, Jaipur
31.	Sat 28 MAY- 15:00	- Bangalore v Mumbai, Bangalore
32.	Sat 10 MAY- 20:00	- Chennai v Mohali, Chennai
33.	Sun 11 MAY- 15:00	- Hyderabad v Kolkata, Hyderabad
34.	Sun 11 MAY- 20:00	- Jaipur v Delhi, Jaipur
35.	Mon 12 MAY- 19:00	- Mohali v Bangalore, Mohali
36.	Tue 13 MAY- 19:00	- Kolkata v Delhi, Kolkata
37.	Wed 14 MAY- 15:00	- Mumbai v Chennai, Mumbai
38.	Wed 14 MAY- 20:00	- Mohali v Jaipur, Mohali
39.	Thu 15 MAY- 19:00	- Delhi v Hyderabad, Delhi
40.	Fri 16 MAY- 19:00	- Mumbai v Kolkata, Mumbai
41.	Sat 17 MAY- 15:00	- Delhi v Mohali, Delhi
42.	Sat 17 MAY- 20:00	- Jaipur v Bangalore, Jaipur
43.	Sun 18 MAY- 15:00	- Hyderabad v Mumbai, Hyderabad
44.	Sun 18 MAY- 20:00	- Kolkata v Chennai, Kolkata
45.	Mon 19 MAY- 19:00	- Bangalore v Delhi, Bangalore
46.	Tue 20 MAY- 19:00	- Kolkata v Jaipur, Kolkata
47.	Wed 21 MAY- 15:00	- Mumbai v Mohali, Mumbai
48.	Wed 21 MAY- 20:00	- Chennai v Bangalore, Chennai
49.	Thu 22 MAY- 19:00	- Delhi v Kolkata, Delhi
50.	Fri 23 MAY- 19:00	- Mohali v Hyderabad, Mohali
51.	Sat 24 MAY- 15:00	- Delhi v Mumbai, Delhi
52.	Sat 24 MAY- 20:00	- Chennai v Jaipur, Chennai
53.	Sun 25 MAY- 15:00	- Bangalore v Hyderabad, Hyderabad
54.	Sun 25 MAY- 20:00	- Kolkata v Mohali, Kolkata
55.	Mon 26 MAY- 19:00	- Jaipur v Mumbai, Jaipur
56.	Tue 27 MAY- 19:00	- Hyderabad v Chennai, Hyderabad

Fri 30 MAY- 20:00 GMT - 1st Semi Final (2nd v 3rd), Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai
Sat 31 MAY- 20:00 GMT - 2nd Semi Final (1st v 4th), Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai

Sun 1 June - 20:00 GMT - The Final, Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai

The IPL teams, Jaipur

One of the weakest teams in the IPL, it won't be surprisisng if it doesn't go past the round robin stage. No one in this team is worth the money spent except of course Graeme Smith, and may be to an extent Munaf Patel. The Emerging Media could have done better at choosing a team for its side. It remains to be seen how good the management shall use the team that they have.

The Jaipur team which cost $ 2.5 million stands thus.

Shane Warne{Captain & Coach}
Graeme Smith
Younis Khan
Kamran Akmal
Yusuf Pathan
Mohammed Kaif
Munaf Patel
Justin Langer
Dimitri Mascarenhas
Shane Watson
Sohail Tanvir
Morne Morkel
Taruwar Kohli
Ravindra Jadeja
Pankaj Singh
Anup Revandkar

The IPL teams, Bangalore.

The UB group chairman should be a happy man in $ 3.6 Millions he got a top class bowling line-up perfect for the Twenty20's, and not to forget the wicket keeper batsman Mark Boucher and India's strike bowler until very recently Zaheer Khan. Its Icon player and captain Rahul Dravid should be a proud man too. The Bangalore team for the IPL looks like this:

Rahul Dravid - Icon Player
Jacques Kallis (South Africa)
Anil Kumble (India)
Cameron White (Australia)
Zaheer Khan (India)
Mark Boucher (South Africa)
Nathan Bracken (Australia)
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies)
Wasim Jaffer (India)
Misbah-ul-Haq (Pakistan)
Abdur Razzaq (Bangladesh)
Ross Taylor (New Zealand)
Virat Kohli (Delhi) (U-19)
Srivats Goswami (Bengal) (U-19)

The IPL teams, MUMBAI

Sachin Tendulkar opening an innings with Jayasurya, Could there be any deadlier opening combination than this? Not likely, Well only Mumbai team can boast about such a combination. It's only possible in the IPL. This team strikes a good balance in terms of experience and youth. It has Shaun Pollock and Lasith Malinga, to quote. The team has spent $ 3.825 Million.

The team has only 8 international cricketers
Sachin Tendulkar (Captain)
Harbhajan Singh
Sanath Jayasuriya
Shaun Pollock
Robin Uthappa
Lasith Malinga
Loots Bosman
Dilhara Fernando
Ajinkya Rahane
Abhishek Nayar
Yogesh Takawale
Iqbal Aabdullah
Pinal Shah
Ashwell Prince
Manish Pandey
Saurabh Tiwary

The IPL team, MOHALI

Priety Zinta, Ness Wadia and Co. did Some player-shopping at the Oberoi-Hilton, and they shopped for some good looking cricketers, like Brett Lee and Irfan Pathan not to mention their ICON player Yuvraj Singh. The Mohali team also looks good as a Team. It contains Ramnaresh Sarwan, and the aggressive Sreesanth. The Mohali Team costs 4.62 million dollars, and it stands thus:

Mohali team members

Yuvraj Singh (India)
Kumar Sangakarra (Srilanka)
Mahela Jayawardene (Srilanka)
Ramnaresh Sarwan (West Indies)
Simon Katich (Australia)
Brett Lee (Australia)
Piyush Chawla ( India)
Irfan Pathan (India)
S Sreesanth (India)
James Hopes (Australia)
Luke Pomersbach (Australia)
Kyle Mills (New Zealand)
Tanmay Srivastava (U-19 Uttar Pradesh)
Ajitesh Argal (U-19 Baroda)

The IPL Teams, Delhi

The Delhi side has a good balance to it in terms of Twenty20 Skill. It has the Virender Sehwag as an opener, and Glenn McGrath as strike bowler. The rest of the team looks in no great ODI form but the Delhi team seems to have all the important Twenty20 players who mattered in the T20 world cup. But it is unlikely that this team would move onto second round, rating it against teams like Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mohali which look like better IPL teams at the moment.

Here's the Delhi team.

Sehwag (c)
Yogesh Nagar
Rajat Bhatia
AB de Villiers
Shikhar Dhawan
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Gautam Gambhir
Brett Geeves
Dinesh Karthik
Glenn McGrath
Farveez Maharoof
Yo Mahesh
Mithun Manhas
Amit Mishra
Mohammad Asif
Pradeep Sangwan
Shoaib Malik
Mayank Tehlan
Manoj Tiwary
Daniel Vettori
Tejashwi Yadav

The IPL teams, Chennai

The Chennai Team had spent lavishly for its players, it is also the second highest spender for players in the league. It spent $ 5.825 million next only to Deccan Chronicle owned Hyderabad.It has Mahendra Singh Dhoni, apart from the Indian ODI Captain, there are few others who have T20 skills. For instance they have Joginder Sharma who was just plain lucky in the Twenty20 world cup, and Albie Morkel who comes handy with both the bat and the ball.

Here's the Chennai team.

#Mahendra Singh Dhoni #Viraj Vilas Kadbe #Palani Amarnath #Manpreet Gony #Srikkanth Anirudha #R Ashwin #Napoleon Einstein #Stephen Fleming *Kepler Wessels (Coach)

#Subramaniam Badrinath #Lakshmipathy Balaji #Matthew Hayden #Michael Hussey #Shadab Jakati #Joginder Sharma #Arun Karthik #Suresh Kumar

#Albie Morkel #Abhinav Mukund #Makhaya Ntini #Jacob Oram #Parthiv Patel (wk) #Suresh Raina #Muttiah Muralitharan #VidyutSivaramakrishnan

The IPL Kolkata team

The Kolkata Team has a lot to boast about, and has equally enough things to think about. First things first. Red Chillies entertainment has ensured that the Kolkata's batting line-up is really top class, but seemed foolish in choosing the rest of the team.Shah Rukh Khan has some fiery pace in Shoaib Akhtar and Ishant Sharma.
Shah Rukh Khan was keen on having Saurav Ganguly in his side, which was precisely the reason behind him buying the Kolkata team. Saurav Ganguly shall lead the Kolkata team for the IPL.

Here's the Kolkata team for the DLF-IPL.

Sourav Ganguly (icon)
Shoaib Akhtar
Ricky Ponting
Brendon McCullum 158*
Chris Gayle
Ajit Agarkar
David Hussey
Ishant Sharma
Murali Kartik
Umar Gul
Tatenda Taibu
Salman Butt
Siddarth Kaul
Iqbal Abdulla
Mohammad Hafeez
Laxmi Ratan Shukla
Sourashis Lahiri
Wriddhiman Saha
Rohan Banerjee
Cheteswar Pujara
Akash Chopra

The IPL teams. HYDERABAD

The HYDERABAD team for the DLF-IPL Tournament.

The Deccan Chronicle had spent a whopping 5.885 mn
$ to ensure that it has one of the most destructive teams in the IPL. It has the best of the batting line-ups with some good hard hitting stroke makers like Adam Gilchrist and Afridi, and workhorses in VVS Laxman and Rohith Sharma.
It also has the controversy man Andrew Symonds in its team. It has a good bowling lineup with spearheads Chaminda Vaas and RP Singh, Shahid Afridi and Scott Styris will fill-in as the All rounders.

The Hyderabad Team is as follows:

1)VVS Laxman[CAPTAIN]
2)Adam Gilchrist[VICE-CAPTAIN]
3)Herschelle Gibbs
4)Shahid Afridi
5)Scott Styris
6)Andrew Symonds
7)Rohit Sharma
8)Chamara Silva
9)RP Singh
10)Chaminda Vaas
11)Nuwan Zoysa
12)Venugopala Rao
13)Pragyan Ojha
14)Halhadar Das
15)Dwaraka Ravi Teja
16)Arjun Yadav
17)Kalyan Krishna
18)Sarveesh Kumar
19)Sanjay Bangar

IPL Bidding, Contracts and Sponsorships.

What kind of revenues does the IPL have on offer??

IPL being the greatest Cricket event in the sub-continent, has a huge amount of money on offer. It had received bids from 14 prospective franchisees. Here are the franchisees that have won the bids, alongside the city teams and the bid winning amount.

RIL(Reliance Ind)	Mumbai	Rs. 441 Cr.(US D 111.9 mn $)
Red Chillies Entertainment	Kolkata	Rs. 296 Cr.(US D 75.09 mn $)
Preity Zinta	Mohali	Rs. 300Cr.(USD 76 mn $)
Deccan Chronicle	Hyderabad	Rs. 422Cr.(USD 107.01 mn $)
UB group	Bangalore	Rs. 440Cr. (USD 111.6mn $)
Emerging Media	Jaipur	Rs. 264Cr.(USD 67 mn $)
GMR Holdings	Delhi	Rs.264Cr.(USD 84 mn $)
Indian Cements	Chennai	Rs.359Cr. (USD 91 mn $)

DLF Group has won the title sponsorship for the IPL and the event shall be called The DLF Indian Premier League or the DLF-IPL at least for the next five years. The DLF reportedly won the bid for 200 Cr.

SONY has won the Telecast rights for the next 10 years shelling out more than 1 Billion Dollars. TV rights are worth $ 918 mn, with $100 mn set aside for promotion.



Will the franchisees stand to gain?
In the long run yes, but in the first few years they have to work really hard.

The franchisee will have to bear the minimum cost of the players’ salary. Other expenses like travel, accommodation, office and support staff, team management, coach, training and preparation, insurance, ground expenses, marketing and promotional cost will also be a part of the franchisee expenditure.

The bid amount, which will be paid to the IPL, will also be accounted for expenditure. This means that if a franchisee buys a team for $60 million for 10 years, that team will have to shell out an amount of $6 million per year. In all probability, the expenditure will go up to $12 to $13 million.

Winning the bid was not all, was it??

But sources close to the bidders reveal that, the bidders are ready to forego $4 mns in the first year as losses.

What is IPL?

IPL stands for Indian Premier League. This League would start on 18th april 2008. It is vaguely based on the EPL. There are a total of 8 teams participating in this event which will play each other. The teams are

1. Mumbai
2. Kolkata
3. Chennai
4. Hyderabad
5. Mohali
6. Delhi
7. Bangalore
8. Jaipur.

The teams were bought by the franchisees. The franchisees range from pure business firms like GMR, to film stars Shah Rukh Khan.
Once the franchisees buy the teams, they can run it according to their own whims and fancies. They can get their own sponsors, and even list their teams on the stock exchanges.
Stars from International cricket world over are set to play this tournament. The BCCI has created a pool of 80 international players whom the franchisees would bid for on 20th February 2008.
However ICON players such as Sachin, Dravid, and Saurav shall play for their home teams and shall be paid the highest, in the team.

The idea of IPL was conceived by Lalit Modi, the vice-president of BCCI. In response to a not so successful ICL(Indian Cricket League) floated by Zee Tv's Subhash Chandra.

All the Matches shall be of Twenty-20 format. The rules of matches are yet to be announced, It seems unlikely that there will be any seeping changes in the rules much unlike the Kerry Packer series.
But, like the Kerry Packer series matches shall be held at night, so that maximum number of people can watch them(which means more money for the BCCI, Sponsors and Franchisees). There shall be 55 matches to be played in 44 days.

We shall look into the money flow in the next post. But you may have to wait a long time before there would be Thrills and Spills of Cricket.