IPL 2011: Are you ready for IPL 4?

With all the hoopla surrounding Indian cricket after becoming world champs, the stage is set for Indian Premier League season 4. IPL as seen in the previous years has been amongst the most entertaining cricket events of the year. IPL 4 kicks off tomorrow with the defending champions Chennai Super Kings taking on the star studded Kolkata Knight Riders 8 PM IST. The match will be played on Chennai’s home turf and according to sources there will be a grand opening ceremony to the event. Shah Rukh Khan is expected to dance to the tunes in the opening ceremony which will surely set the stage on fire.

The biggest news in this season’s IPL is the reshuffling of players which will surely have some people confused. So, the next time you see the former Delhi Daredevils captain wearing a Kolkata Knight Riders jersey don’t be surprised because he has been paid a whopping amount to play for KKR. Secondly, there has been an addition of two new teams, Sahara Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers which is sure to spice up the contest even further.

Another change in this year’s IPL edition is that the number of matches that are reduced from 94 to 73. All ten teams are divided into two groups of 5 teams each and all of them will play 4 league matches against each other and two more against the fifth team which will be chosen randomly. IPL4 is set to define the future of Indian Premier League as many think that cricket has been overdone while others think that adding new teams and re-shuffling the players will add more spice to this curry.

It’s only been a week since the world cup got over and since then the Indian team has been showered with gifts. There is a huge high after the world cup and people surely want to see Dhoni, Sachin, Sehwag and for that matter the world champs back in action. Though, it will be difficult for people to adjust their sentiments after the world cup win but the event promises to be a cracker.

While some players will be playing to enhance their resume just after the world cup win while others will be playing to seek a comeback into the national team. Players like Ishant Sharma, Irfan Pathan and Robin Uthappa have already stated that they want to use IPL as a stepping stone to enter into the national team.

The IPL has always been an unpredictable tournament which certainly makes it one of the most exciting events of the year. This season kicks off 8 PM in the evening tomorrow and the TRP’s are expected to soar higher than ever before.

IPL 2011: Was IPL 4 auction rigged???

INDIAN PREMIER League, the brand in the making for the first 2 years, one which brought about the commercial side of cricket in India, now stands; once again I may add, amidst controversies and fall outs. This time around it is the Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, who is at the epicentre of this fiasco, N.Sreenivasan. Interestingly, before I started writing this piece. I wanted to know more about this guy and so I searched and found that Wikipedia describes him as
"an Indian industrialist, chemical engineer, sports administrator and socialite who is the Managing-Director of the India Cements Limited and owner of the Chennai Super Kings Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team. He is also currently the Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India."

Now, the first four cognomens does showcase the versatility of the person which has to be well respected but the last four keys does ring some bells. The wrong bells of course. IPL auctions being rigged is not a new thing, last year also these allegations were there about Lalit Modi favouring certain teams and this time around there is a certain team, who might have benefited owing to N.Sreenivasan.
Now the hard news is that Mumbai Indians think that auctions were rigged and a special someone, who knew about the auction inside out sat in the auction with a particular team, clearly helping them out. Well they are running around the bush for sure, but most of us know that the reference is for Chennai Super Kings. And from his Wikipedia bio hardly any doubt is left.

Honestly, even I was perplexed on how well CSK were performing in the auctions, what ever they wanted, they got it, and their bidding was bang on. But these all probably my perception and N.Sreenivasan and CSK are just the cream of the issue.

Issue is most definitely an over used word and why not, IPL does tend to have a lot of issues. Capped players, uncapped players and what not .Again as I further read on about the issue, ....aah I should use some other word next time around, well anyway, A column by Sharda Urga fascinated me, in that column she stated how rules of uncapped players were bend at the last moment and it also clearly indicated the big honchos in the fray. Interestingly that big honcho was Mumbai Indians, who had proposed that uncapped players be retained rather than going for the auction but it did not happen.

What happened was the uncapped players could be racked up just like that. A sort of internal matter, meaning that if an uncapped or capped players were of that high demand some extra "perks' might be added to lure them in to any particular franchise. Not a fair play right??? And moreover who the hell decides these rules.

Well one of those rule makers might be the name mentioned earlier.

IPL 2011 Opening Ceremony likely to be hosted by Amitabh Bachchan

IPL 2011 opening ceremony venue has been decided and this time Chepauk stadium in Chennai is going to host the important opening event of IPL season 4. Chennai is the home ground of IPL season 3 winner Chennai Super Kings.
According to reports, Indian Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan is likely to host the IPL opening ceremony. Also industry’s  Mr. Perfect, Aamir Khan, might make a guest appearance during the ceremony.
First look of “Thayn Thayn” song from Dum Maaro Dum will also be released on the opening day of IPL 4, it is being said.
The opening ceremony of IPL 2011 will start at 3.30 PM on April 8th, 2011. Chennai Super Kings will face  Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL opening match at 8 PM IST after the opening ceremony is over. Chennai is going to host nine IPL matches for this season including the IPL 4 grand finale.
IPL 2011 tickets for matches are already available online, through sites such as Kyazoonga and bookmyshow. Also, different franchises have made them official online ticketing partners.
The cost of tickets this time is high and P2 stand ticket for a three hour IPL T20 match will cost Rs 55,000. If you want to enjoy the match from J Corporate stand, it'll cost you Rs 33,000. A seat in the P4 stand is priced at Rs 27,500.

ESPN ad rates soar to 20 lakh per 10 seconds for India-Pakistan semifinal

If you think it was only the tickets for India-Pakistan semi-final match which were getting sold for more than one lakh, then probably you are wrong. Even the advertisers are ready to shell out moolah just to get a ten second ad spot during the India-Pakistan semi final match.

Media experts feel that India Pakistan semi final match is biggest marketing opportunity on the planet and it will attract crores of eyeballs. No GEC or IPL can provide that viewership. So the advertisers can’t let it go. Even on the online platform the match will register record number of online streaming.

Subhrangshu Neogi of Religare, one of the on air advertisers in the cricket world cup told BestMediaInfo.com, “One of the biggest advantages with advertising on ESPN for the world cup is that its not cluttered as an IPL environment. The brand gets good visibility. That’s not in the case of IPL or any other event. We are not sponsors but we have cherry picked some matches and fortunately it has worked for us as India and Pakistan are clashing in the semifinal.”

ESPN is charging over Rs.20 lakh per 10 seconds for the last minute ad inventory and advertisers are even to ready to pay the amount as they know that never in coming years they’ll get a bigger marketing opportunity than the India-Pakistan semi-final world cup match .

The rates ranged from Rs 4-5 lakh for 10-second spots before the start of the tournament to Rs 10-11 lakh when it was clear that India will play Australia in the quarter final.

IPL 2011 Tickets And Venue

As per latest IPL2011 news Indian Premiere League Season four is gong to start in the month of April with two new teams apart from existing eight teams of earlier seasons. IPL 2011 venue will be cricket grounds of India. Pune and Kochi are the places which are going to be IPL 2011 venue in this season four of IPL.

After the controversial out let of Lalit Modi last year Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar are set in the management system to work for decision of IPL 2011 dates and also IPL 2011 venue. ipl 2011 news these days talked about the auction of teams which is done in starting of the year. ipl 2011 dates are decided after the scheduling of matches. The scheduling and format of matches was done by draw system on the day of auction itself. As soon as IPL 2011 venue will be decided and IPL 2011 dates will be declared, IPL 2011 tickets information can be accessed easily from wiki. It is working in promotional activities to release IPL 2011 news.

IPL 2011 tickets online can be bought from the site –iplticket.com and computicket.com.IPL 2011 venue decided for the opening ceremony is Chepauk Stadium of Chennai. IPL 2011 news will mostly highlight the performance of newly formed teams and some of the star players. There will be effect on the sale of IPL 2011 tickets since IPL 2011 dates just fall after the cricket world cup. But the cricket fever in our country slightly subsidizes. This is certified by on going queries related to IPL 2011 dates and IPL 2011 tickets. Keep on accessing to latest IPL 2011 news for knowing latest updates related to Indian Premiere League.

After end of cricket world cup of 2011 there will another cricketing event which will keep you entertaining the entire summer. This event is going to start from April 8 and going t0 end by May 22 2011. These are decided opening and closing IPL 2011 dates for season four. Buy IPL 2011 tickets and witness India to host these major cricketing events, one world cup and another ipl.