BCCI releases provisional schedule of IPL 2011

OWING TO the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry, the governing body of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has released a revised provisional schedule of IPL 2011.

The fourth installment of the hugely awaited IPL 4 is set to commence from April 8 until May 28. The Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings, which was the winner of the IPL 3, will take on Kolkata Knight Riders in the opening match of the IPL 4 on April 8, 2011 at MA Chidambram Stadium in Chennai.

IPL 4 will see 10 teams battling it out for the top spot.

The IPL 2011 Revised Schedule is placed below:

Date	Time	Teams	Venue
April 8	8 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders	Chennai
April 9	4 PM IST	Deccan Chargers vs Rajasthan Royals	Hyderabad
April 9	8 PM IST	Kochi v Royal Challengers Bangalore	Kochi
April 10	4 PM IST	Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians	Delhi
April 10	8 PM IST	Pune Warriors vs Kings XI Punjab	Navi Mumbai
April 11	8 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders vs Deccan Chargers	Kolkata
April 12	4 PM IST	Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Daredevils	Jaipur
April 12	8 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians	Bangalore
April 13	4 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab vs Chennai Super Kings	Mohali
April 13	8 PM IST	Pune Warriors vs Kochi	Navi Mumbai
April 14	8 PM IST	Deccan Chargers vs Royal Challengers Bangalore	Hyderabad
April 15	4 PM IST	Rajasthan v Kolkata Knight Riders	Jaipur
April 15	8 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Kochi	Mumbai
April 16	4 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings v Royal Challengers Bangalore	Chennai
April 16	8 PM IST	Deccan Chargers v Kings XI Punjab	Hyderabad
April 17	4 PM IST	Pune Warriors v Delhi Daredevils	Navi Mumbai
April 17	8 PM IST	Rajasthan v Kolkata Knight Riders	Kolkata
April 18	8 PM IST	Kochi v Chennai Super Kings	Kochi
April 19	4 PM IST	Delhi Daredevils vs Deccan Chargers	Delhi
April 19	8 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore v Rajasthan Royals	Bangalore
April 20	4 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Pune Warriors	Mumbai
April 20	8 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders v Kochi	Kolkata
April 21	8 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab v Rajasthan Royals	Mohali
April 22	4 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders v Royal Challengers Bangalore	Kolkata
April 22	4 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Chennai Super Kings	Mumbai
April 23	8 PM IST	Delhi Daredevils v Kings XI Punjab	Delhi
April 24	4 PM IST	Deccan Chargers v Mumbai Indians	Hyderabad
April 24	8 PM IST	Rajasthan Royals v Kochi	Jaipur
April 25	8 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings v Pune Warriors	Chennai
April 26	8 PM IST	Delhi Daredevils v Royal Challengers Bangalore	Delhi
April 27	4 PM IST	Pune Warriors v Chennai Super Kings	Navi Mumbai
April 27	8 PM IST	Kochi v Deccan Chargers	Kochi
April 28	8 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders v Delhi Daredevils	Delhi
April 29	4 PM IST	Rajasthan Royals v Mumbai Indians	Jaipur
April 29	8 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore v Pune	Bangalore
April 30	4 PM IST	Kochi v Delhi Daredevils	Kochi
April 30	8 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders v Kings XI Punjab	Kolkata
May 1	4 PM IST	Rajasthan Royals v Pune Warriors	Jaipur
May 1	8 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings v Deccan Chargers	Chennai
May 2	4 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Kings XI Punjab	Mumbai
May 2	8 PM IST	Delhi Daredevils v Kochi	Delhi
May 3	8 PM IST	Deccan Chargers v Kolkata Knight Riders	Hyderabad
May 4	4 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings v Rajasthan Royals	Chennai
May 4	8 PM IST	Pune Warriors v Mumbai Indians	Navi Mumbai
May 5	4 PM IST	Kochi v Kolkata Knight Riders	Kochi
May 5	8 PM IST	Deccan Chargers v Delhi Daredevils	Hyderabad
May 6	8 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore v Kings XI Punjab	Bangalore
May 7	4 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders v Chennai Super Kings	Kolkata
May 7	8 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Delhi Daredevils	Mumbai
May 8	4 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore v Kochi	Bangalore
May 8	8 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab v Pune Warriors	Mohali
May 9	8 PM IST	Rajasthan Royals v Chennai Super Kings	Jaipur
May 10	4 PM IST	Deccan Chargers v Pune Warriors	Hyderabad
May 10	8 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab v Mumbai Indians	Mohali
May 11	8 PM IST	Rajasthan Royals v Royal Challengers Bangalore	Jaipur
May 12	8 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings v Delhi Daredevils	Chennai
May 13	8 PM IST	Kochi v Kings XI Punjab	Indore
May 14	4 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore v Kolkata Knight Riders	Bangalore
May 14	8 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Deccan Chargers	Mumbai
May 15	4 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab v Delhi Daredevils	Dharamsala
May 15	8 PM IST	Kochi v Rajasthan Royals	Indore
May 16	8 PM IST	Pune Warriors v Deccan Chargers	Navi Mumbai
May 17	8 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab v Royal Challengers Bangalore	Dharamsala
May 18	8 PM IST	Chennai Super Kings v Kochi	Chennai
May 19	8 PM IST	Pune Warriors v Kolkata Knight Riders	Navi Mumbai
May 20	8 PM IST	Mumbai Indians v Rajasthan Royals	Mumbai
May 21	4 PM IST	Kings XI Punjab v Deccan Chargers	Dharamsala
May 21	8 PM IST	Delhi Daredevils v Pune Warriors	Delhi
May 22	4 PM IST	Royal Challengers Bangalore v Chennai Super Kings	Bangalore
May 22	8 PM IST	Kolkata Knight Riders v Mumbai Indians	Kolkata
May 24	8 PM IST	Qualifier 1 First v Second	Mumbai
May 25	8 PM IST	Eliminator Third v Fourth	Mumbai
May 27	8 PM IST	Qualifier 2	Chennai
May 28	8 PM IST	Final	Chennai

IPL 2011 to be held in new more rigorous IPL format

THE INDIAN Premier League (IPL), 2011, will be contested between ten teams with two new teams added by the BCCI, i.e., Sahara Pune Warriors from Pune and Kochi Tuskers Kerala from Kochi.
IPL 2011 will be played  form April 8 to May 28 2011 with the new format, which was announced by the IPL governing council.

The format is based on last year's domestic T20 Tournament in New Zealand. In new IPL format, there will be total of 74 matches in the IPL 4 Fixtures. Out of these 70 would be league matches and each IPL team will play at least 14 matches, 7 matches will be played at home venue and remaining at away venues.

IPL 2011's new format is as follows:

IPL 2011 Teams will be divided in two groups of five teams each. But IPL Standings table will not be separate.

Each IPL team in the same group will play two matches against each other, on “home-away” ground each, counting to 8 league matches per team.

Each IPL team will play 1 league match each against 4 teams of other group and 2 league matches home or away against the fifth team selected randomly, counting to 6 matches per team. It results in 14 (8+6) games in the league matches before the next playoff round.

All IPL 2011 league matches will count to 70 before 3 playoff matches begin, namely Game A, Game B and Game C.

Top 2 teams in the IPL points table will play each other in first playoff of Game A. Winner of Game A will go straight to the final.

Game B, 2nd playoff will be between teams at third and fourth spot in the IPL standings. Whoever looses Game B will be out of the league.

Game B winner will still need to contest in third playoff Game C against loser of first playoff i.e. Game A for entering into Finals of IPL 2011.

Then, off course, the last match, IPL 2011 Grand Finale, would be played between winner of Game A and Game C.

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.

Kumble Pulls Out Of Indian Premier League Auction

Former Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Anil Kumble has decided to opt out of being available for auction ahead of the fourth season of the Indian Premier League.

“I wish to withdraw from the players auction for IPL IV scheduled for the 8th and 9th of January 2011 in Bangalore," Kumble said in a statement posted on the Indian board's official website (www.bcci.tv).

“I have enjoyed my stint at the IPL so far and thank all concerned for the support extended,” he added.

He has cited business commitments as a reason for pulling out of the Twenty20 competition and was recently appointed President of the Karnataka State Cricket Association.

Under Kumble, the Royal Challengers reached the final of the second edition of the IPL in 2009 in South Africa and then finished in third place in the third edition, going on to represent India in the first two stagings of the Champions League Twenty20.

Under new rules for the 2011 tournament, Kumble would have been available for any of the teams to bid on after just 12 players were retained by their franchises.

Kumble, who played 132 Tests and 269 One-Day Internationals for India, took 45 wickets for the Challengers during his time with them.

He took over as captain in the second season following a disappointing first season with Rahul Dravid at the helm and then a short spell when Kevin Pietersen led the side in South Africa.