Chennai Super Kings to play Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL4 opener

Defending Champion Chennai Super Kings will play Kolkata Knight Riders in the opening match of IPL 2011.

CSK and KKR will play IPL season four opener at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk in Chennai on Friday.

The MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk in Chennai will also host the final match of IPL 4 on May 28.

This year of T20 extravaganza will be played at 13 venues across the country and will last 51 days.

According to the BCCI sources, the IPL4 schedule is expected to reschedule for few matches due to assembly elections in the five states.

Meanwhile, the new Pune franchise has announced that the side will be called "Pune Warriors India instead of Sahara Pune Warriors."

Shahrukh Khan's KKR team to be promoted on Facebook as a brand

The king of bollywood Shahrukh Khan is trying all it takes to change fortunes of his IPL team KKR. SRK will be trying social networking site Facebook for his IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). In the past SRK has been actively tweeting during IPL season 3. This will be first instance where any IPL owner will be using Facebook for professional reasons in big way. Earlier the team had only few fan groups on FB.

In an new published in Times of India it's reported that SRK has build a team of professional to undertaken promotion of KKR team. The team has already started working from this month and will be continue till the end of IPL season 4. The IPL will start after the end of ICC World cup 2011. Seems like along with restructuring offline aspects of team, SRK is bringing new ways online also which may change fortunes of his team which has struggled to impress its fans in all IPL seasons.

Bollywood actors have found limited interested in social networking site and mainly limited to Twitter. Amitabh Bachchan has been among the selected actors who have been active bloggers. He along with Abhishek provides regular update related to important events of their life and movies. He only inspired Aamir Khan to join Twitter.

He posted tweets related to bollywood as well as IPL team. However later he stopped posting tweets. However later he stopped and his last tweet was on Jan 2nd. He has 796,174 followers on his account.

IPL Auction Concludes After Busy Second Day

The second and final day of the auction ahead of the 2011 Indian Premier League competition has concluded, with all ten franchises continuing to spend big to finalise their squads.

Only 12 players were retained before the auction and Gautam Gambhir, who was picked up by the Kolkata Knight Riders for $US 2.4 million, proved to be the most expensive purchase as no player topped the $US 1 million-mark on the second day.

The Indian board (BCCI) has also confirmed the format of the 2011 tournament, which includes ten teams for the first time although teams will not play each time home and away, resulting in a tournament containing 70 matches.

"Each team will play seven matches at home, and seven away," a statement from the BCCI confirmed.

"Each team has nine opponents. Each side will play five of those at home and away, will play two at home only, and will play the remaining two away only. This will produce a total of seventy league matches.

"The season will commence as scheduled on Friday, 8 April 2011, and will conclude with the IPL final on Saturday, 28 May 2011. There will be one league table, as in previous years, and the top four teams at the end of the league stage will qualify for the play-off matches.

"There will be four play-off matches, as previously announced. Which team plays which opponents (home and away / home only / away only) will be determined by a random draw."

Below is a list of the franchises' purchases (prices in $US dollars).

Chennai Super Kings:  Ravichandran Ashwin (850,000), Subramaniam Badrinath (800,000), Doug Bollinger (700,000), Michael Hussey (425,000), Dwayne Bravo (200,000), Wriddhaman Saha (100,000), Scott Styris (200,000), Ben Hilfenhaus (100,000), Joginder Sharma (150,000), Nuwan Kulasekara (100,000), Sudeep Tyagi (240,000), Suraj Randiv (80,000), George Bailey (50,000), Francois du Plessis (120,000)

Deccan Chargers: JP Duminy (300,000), Shikhar Dhawan (300,000), Kevin Pietersen (650,000), Kumar Sangakkara (700,000), Cameron White (1.1 million), Ishant Sharma (450,000), Dale Steyn (1.2 million), Pragyan Ojha (500,000), Amit Mishra (300,000), Daniel Christian (900,000), Manpreet Gony (290,000), Chris Lynn (20,000), Juan Theron (85,000), Michael Lumb (80,000),

Delhi Daredevils: Naman Ojha (270,000), James Hopes (350,000), David Warner (750,000), Irfan Pathan (1.9 million), Morne Morkel (475,000), Aaron Finch (300,000), Matthew Wade (100,000), Ajit Agarkar (210,000), Ashok Dinda (375,000), Umesh Yadav (750,000), Roelof van der Merwe (50,000), Yalaka Venugopal Rao (700,000), Andrew McDonald (80,000), Travis Birt (20,000), Colin Ingram (100,000), Robert Frylinck (20,000)

Kings XI Punjab: Shaun Marsh (400,000), Stuart Broad (400,000), Abhishek Nayar (800,000), Adam Gilchrist (900,000), Dinesh Karthik (900,000), David Hussey (1.4 million), Praveen Kumar (800,000), Ryan Harris (325,000), Piyush Chawla (900,000), Dimitri Mascarenhas (100,000), Nathan Rimmington (20,000),

Kochi: Mahela Jayawardene (1.5 million), Ravindra Jadeja (950,000), Shanthakumaran Sreesanth (900,000), RP Singh (500,000), Brendon McCullum (475,000), VVS Laxman (400,000), Parthiv Patel (290,000), Steven Smith (200,000), Muttiah Muralitharan (1.1 million), Ramesh Powar (180,000), Brad Hodge (425,000), Tissara Perera (80,000), Ranganath Vinay Kumar (475,000), Stephen O'Keeffe (20,000), Owais Shah (200,000), Michael Klinger (75,000), John Hastings (20,000)

Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (2.4 million), Yusuf Pathan (2.1 million), Jacques Kallis (1.1 million), Shakib Al Hasan (425,000), Brad Haddin (325,000), Brett Lee (400,000), Eoin Morgan (350,000), Manoj Tiwary (475,000), Lakshmipathy Balaji (500,000), Jaidev Unadkat (250,000), Ryan ten Doeschate (150,000), James Pattinson (100,000)

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (2 million), Andrew Symonds (850,000), Davey Jacobs (190,000), James Franklin (100,000), Munaf Patel (700,000), Clint McKay (110,000), Moises Henriques (50,000), Aiden Blizzard (20,000)

Pune Warriors: Robin Uthappa (2.1 million), Yuvraj Singh (1.8 million), Angelo Mathews (950,000), Graeme Smith (500,000), Tim Paine (270,000), Ashish Nehra (850,000), Nathan McCullum (100,000), Callum Ferguson (300,000). Wayne Parnell (160,000), Mitchell Marsh (290,000), Jerome Taylor (100,000), Alfonso Thomas (100,000), Jesse Ryder (150,000), Murali Kartik (400,000)

Rajasthan Royals: Ross Taylor (1 million), Johan Botha (950,000), Rahul Dravid (500,000), Paul Collingwood (250,000), Shaun Tait (300,000), Pankaj Singh (95,000)

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Saurabh Tiwary (1.6 million), AB de Villiers (1.1 million), Zaheer Khan (900,000), Tillakaratne Dilshan (650,000), Daniel Vettori (550,000), Dirk Nannes (650,000), Cheteshwar Pujara (700,000), Charl Langeveldt (140,000), Luke Pomersbach (50,000), Abhimanyu Mithun (260,000), Johannes van der Wath (50,000), Rilee Rossouw (20,000), Nuwan Pradeep (20,000), Jonathan Vandiar (20,000), Mohammad Kaif (130,000)

IPL 4 auction: Gambhir and Yusuf went to KKR for $2.4 and $2.1 million respectively

NEW DELHI: Kolkata Knight Riders bought Gautam Gambhir for a whopping $2.4 million as the world's leading cricket players go under the hammer for the Indian Premier League auction in Bangalore on Saturday.

Sri Lankan all-rounder Dilshan was bagged by Vijay Mallya's Royal Challengers for $650,000 whereas Indian pacer Zaheer Khan also went to RCB for $900,000. Rajasthan Royals then bought the services of New Zealand's Ross Taylor for $1 million. Former West Indies captain Brian Lara and a host of England's Ashes heroes will be among 350 players up for grabs at the auction in Bangalore on Saturday and Sunday.

Lara and England bowler James Anderson are among 21 cricketers with the highest reserve price of $400,000 for a three-year contract, with the cash-rich Delhi and Mumbai teams likely to engage in a fierce bidding war. Other foreigners on offer include Australians Adam Gilchrist and Brett Lee, England's Kevin Pietersen, South Africans Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers, and New Zealand's Daniel Vettori. Proceedings at a luxury hotel in the IT hub of Bangalore, presided over by a professional auctioneer from Britain, will begin both days at 11:00 local time (0530 GMT) and be broadcast live on an Indian television channel.

The annual IPL tournament revolutionised the sport when it burst onto the scene in 2008 with a high-octane blend of international star players, Twenty20 matches and Bollywood glamour. But its fortunes dipped dramatically last year after allegations of massive corruption, money-laundering and tax evasion, as well as secret deals to hide teams' real owners, and even links to India's criminal underworld. IPL founder Lalit Modi -- whose brash style personified the event -- was thrown out by the BCCI, the sport's governing body in India, over accusations about his conduct and organisers hope this year will be fresh start.

The tournament, to be held from April 8 to May 22, is expected to feature 10 teams after Indian courts overturned the expulsion of the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. The BCCI, as part of its attempt to improve transparency in the IPL, threw out both teams in October for not declaring changes in their ownership structures. The ensuing legal battle led to their probable return -- though no official announcement has yet been made. Two new teams have joined the league: Kochi, who have also been involved in a nasty ownership squabble, and the Pune Warriors. The players' auction was due to be held in November but was delayed amid confusion about the size and format of this year's tournament, which will start just six days after the end of the World Cup co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Twelve players have been retained by their original franchises, with Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni staying with the Chennai Super Kings and Shane Warne and Shane Watson sticking with the Rajasthan Royals. Some top cricketers have opted out of the IPL's fourth season, including the Australian trio of Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson, and former India captain Anil Kumble. Other notable absentees include former Australian stars Matthew Hayden and Glenn McGrath. Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who signed for $1.55 million with the Chennai Super Kings in 2009, has retired. Pakistan's cricketers will continue to miss out on the IPL bonanza after none of them was included for the auction.

Their players participated in the inaugural IPL, but were forced out of the 2009 season due to security concerns in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and were then ignored for the 2010 tournament. Modi, meanwhile, faces a government probe over financial irregularities and has also had a criminal case registered against him by the BCCI for the misappropriation of 4.68 billion rupees ($106 million). He denies all charges and now lives in self-imposed exile in London, surrounded by bodyguards, as he claims his life is in danger from Mumbai-based gangsters linked to illegal gambling.