Yes, it is finally upon us! Amidst all the match and spot fixing hype, the tournament is here, but the hype is not, which is unfair to be honest.

This is a great chance to see some of the best cricketers in the world competing with and against each other in the biggest T20 competition starring just domestic sides.

This is the preview for Royal Challengers Bangalore, from India. They qualified for the Champions League T20 by finishing third in the Indian Premier League

Royal Challengers Bangalore

One of the first eight teams in the Indian Premier League, RCB was founded in 2008 and is owned by Indian liquor baron Dr. Vijay Mallya. His son, Sidhartha is the Director of the team.

Strengths

Often touted as a ‘test side’, RCB has performed remarkably well in the last two editions of the IPL. With Ray Jennings as coach, focus is always on on field performance, and who better to ensure that than Anil Kumble, the skipper. The team is a well balanced all round unit, comprising of power hitters like Robin Uthappa, Ross Taylor, Jacques Kallis and Manish Pandey.

The bowling attack is potent as well, with Dale Steyn leading the charge, ably supported by the wise Praveen Kumar and the prodigy Vinay Kumar. Dillion Du Preez has also impressed during the warm up matches, an account of which can be heard here.

The Squad

Coach: Ray Jennings

Paddle Sweep Trump Player

Watch out for Robin Uthappa. He has shown plenty of signs that he might explode. It only takes 4-5 overs to make a difference. He also has to get is India spot back. Motive, talent and hunger are a potent mix. Watch out.

Group

Is seeded in Group B with Mumbai Indians, Highveld Lions, South Australia and Guyana

Prediction

Semis at least… South African players will have a huge role to play.

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1. Pat Symcox and the melted bails in Faisalabad

Back in the day when we still played cricket in Pakistan (circa 97-98), South Africa were touring there Faisalabad. Mushtaq Ahmed was bowling, Pat Symcox was on strike. Symcox missed the ball, and it skittle through to the middle stump. It was so hot in Pakistan, though, that the bails had been fused together and they never fell off. Symcox went on to score 81, his second highest score in a Test match.

2. All god’s creatures great and small

Animals have been stopping play for centuries, here are a couple of odd ones (all during county games). A pig stopped play in 1889 during a  Worchestershire and Derbyshire match. In 1936, a sparrow stopped play when a ball struck it midflight. The sad sparrow can currently be viewed at Lord’s cricket ground. a hedgehog, mouse, bees and dogs are some of the other animals who have been responsible for stopping play in cricket matches.

3. Stop being such a Mankad

“Mankading” is the method is named after the Indian bowler, Vinoo Mankad who caused a stir when he ran out the batsman at the non-striker’s end before he released the ball (the striker was out of his crease). In his autobiography, Don Bradman said the following about Mankad”

“For the life of me, I can’t understand why [the press] questioned his sportsmanship. The laws of cricket make it quite clear that the non-striker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered. If not, why is the provision there which enables the bowler to run him out? By backing up too far or too early, the non-striker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage.”

4. Another Sachin Tendulkar Record

The legendary Sachin Tendulkar was the first batsman to be run out by using television replays. The fielder was Jonty Rhodes.

5. Duck, duck, goose

India were all out for 54 in October 2000 in a Coca-Cola Champions Trophy final. This was their lowest ever total in One Day Internationals against. Sri Lanka did the damage as Chaminda Vaas bagged five for 15. The funniest part? Not a single Indian player scored a duck in that game.

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Bless. Vuvuzelas have been banned from the CLT20.

Let’s read and reflect on that statement and then ask ourselves, who the hell ever thought it would be okay to take a vuvuzela to a cricket match? That mere thought is almost as bad as spot fixing.

Being a Saffa, and half West-Indian, I am rather fond of the plastic noise horn but at a cricket match….you’re kidding, right?

There is a story about a lady who actually took one to a cricket game (pictured above).

This all happened somewhere in Ireland during a game between the Irish and the Aussies.

“What are you doing?” a befuddled security official asked the lady and then asked  to see the vuvuzela. A group of cricket fans sitting close to all of this had responded with: “give it back to her, it’s cool.”

After looking confused for a while, he said there would be no problem with playing the vuvuzela, even for the whole duration of the game.

I’m sorry….WHAT?

The good news is that the authorties have stamped their disapproval on this rather quickly.  Contradicting this decision, a few weeks later GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) officials said: “They [vuvuzelas] will be taken from people if seen on the way in. It will be hard to ensure none get into the stadium, but if somebody alerts stewards in the stadium, we will go and take them away.”

RTE received more than 100 complaints from the public regarding the noise from the horn and a statement from them said: “We’ve been working with our sound department to reduce the incoming sound levels of the vuvuzela in favour of our commentary teams. This has yielded a small difference,” said a spokeswoman.

So, pray tell…why the hell did you think it would be okay?

The Irish have the right idea, sometimes…

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You might notice that a lot of things have changed over here, the looks being at the foremost. It was an impulsive decision and once which could have been risky. But here we are, and its not bad, is it?

For every achievement, there are people who are involved and need to be thanked. This time is no exception. Here is a list of people responsible for the redesign:

• mspr1nt: my co-blogger here has been the biggest inspiration, urging me to try out changes, and applauding them if they do well. This entire redesign is based on the concept she gave. So thank you mspr1nt.
• Warren K Smith: thank you warren, for the new logo. We are hereby retiring the old one.
• The testers: Evaa and Dhaval, thank you for your patience.

Also, a huge thank you to all of you for making me feel that this tiny little cricket blog is worth getting a professional look.

PS: There are a lot of cool features on this blog now, some you may notice, and some you might now. Catch me anytime for a demo or instructions on how to make your site a better place for people to interact with you.

I now leave it up to you. Anything you liked, anything you didn’t like, any bugs, bouquets and brickbats, leave it all in the comments section below.

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We have already discussed the format of IPL 2011, so lets head straight to the players. Each franchise is allowed to retain up to four players, subject to a maximum of three Indians. Retaining a player comes at a price, of course.

What Price?
Before we come to that, it is important to know that there will be a fresh auction in November 2010, comprising of all players except those retained by the eight franchises and those signed pre-auction by the new franchises Kochi and Pune (we’ll come to this bit later).

The cap for number of players in a squad is 30. It is to be noted that the maximum purse for buying players at that auction would be $9 million for each franchise which hasn’t retained a player. (In case of Pune or Kochi, they will get the full 9 mill to spend if they do not sign any player before the auction, as I said, I will explain this bit later on in this post).

What if a franchise retains 1, 2, 3, or 4 players? Well, then their spending power comes down during the auction. In this formulation:

note that, if they don’t retain, they get full 9 million to spend.

To summarize:

• upto 4 players can be retained
• maximum 3 Indians
• With each retained player, spending power at auction reduces
• Squad Limit: 30 Players

Important Note: The price the player gets when he is a retained player is fixed between the player and the franchise. So, the total amount spent by franchises to pay for new + retained player can be very well over 9 million. Yes, there are a lot of things a franchise needs to consider before it retains. My bet is most will retain three players at most.

What about Kochi and Pune, won’t they suffer?
They might, but there are a lot of factors. These two teams are also allowed to sign up to four players who haven’t yet played in the IPL. Their spending power also reduces in the same manner. (see above)

Anything about local players?
Yes, those things remain the same. Every team has to have 4 players from their catchment area.

What about Pune/Kochi?
I knew this was coming. The catchment areas have been revised. Here is the revised list:

• Royal Challengers Bangalore: Karnataka, Goa
• Mumbai Indians: Mumbai, Baroda
• Deccan Chargers: Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa
• Chennai Super Kings: Tamil Nadu, Railways
• Delhi Daredevils: Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal
• Kings XI Punjab: Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir
• Kolkata Knight Riders: West Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam, Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur
• Rajasthan Royals: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Saurashtra
• Pune Warriors: Maharashtra, Vidarbha
• Kochi: Kerala, Services, Madhya Pradesh

If you are one of those mappy sorts, here it is, just for you:

That concludes our IPL info-series, All about IPL 2011. A few more minor points are there, but that is exactly what they are minor points. For any queries, do write to us.

And yes, we got nominated in the SA Blog Awards. Please vote for us. You can vote once every day. Tell your friends as well.

VOTE FOR US!!!

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On Sunday night, deep into the early hours of Monday morning, @mspr1nt made a breakthrough. She got hold of a Pakistani head honcho, Shuchza Butt who revealed everything. This is bigger than the News of The World story…this is everything. Here is the transcript.

msp: Suchza, thank you for agreeing to speak to me, I know a lot has been going on and you have been very busy setting up a charity for neglected donkeys.

suchza: No problem, I want people to know the truth. This is the perfect opportunity.

msp: First, please tell  me, how do you feel about these allegations and the way people have been reacting to them? People are saying the game is over as we know it, do you think this is true

such: Actually, it is not us who have been saying that the game is over. The ICC have been saying for years now that Test cricket is dead, why should these allegations make it any different? If anything, these allegations have done the world some good, everybody is talking about the spot-fixing scandal. Even the people who normally watch Oprah. We’ve reignited the interested and we’ve made everybody a comedian.

msp: made everybody a comedian?

such: yes, msp. did you not watch the T20 game yesterday? You would have noticed that there were plenty of catches that were dropped and Kakmal, ironically caught some balls. Now everybody was being funny about these things. We’ve sparked creativity.

msp: errr….ok….but don’t you think that this is a scandal?

such: what do you mean scandal, dear? a scandal is something such as a prime minister having an extra marital affair, taking money for something that you would do anyway is not a scandal.

msp: but they bowled those no balls deliberately?

such: but they would have bowled no balls anyway. now they are just getting paid for it. it’s just part of the job.

msp: erm, ok. I hear you know the reason why they did these things?

such: yes, that is because Pakistan are the best cricket team in the world.

msp: huh?

such: yes. they were paying us to lose so that we don’t keep on embarrassing everyone. do you remember the two Ws, dear? well now the two Ms are set to me three times as brutal as them, dear. teams would keep losing and we would be on top of the world. we have to balance things out. otherwise teams like Bangladesh, West Indies and New Zealand would be banished and they would never get to play cricket.

msp: what?

such. yes, dear. they pay us to pretend to be under dogs in series. we are only allowed to win world cups.

msp: rubbish.

such: no my dear. rubbish is what you call the shot Luke Wright played yesterday and the stuff Kevin Pietersen publishes on his Twitter feed. What I am telling you now is the truth, nothing but the truth and more than the truth. In fact Majeed is actually related to Mr. Lorgatte. It’s all for the good of the game, dear. it was all planned.

msp: heh.

such: who is that, dear?

msp: nobody. thanks for your time. bye.

such: bye dear, remember my 150k.

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Presenting…

How IPL 2011 works, a Paddle Sweep original.

Group Stage
There are 10 teams, divided into 2 groups of 5 each. Now, just for the sake of simplicity in explanation, let us divide the 10 franchises into two groups. Do note that these are for representational purposes only and are in no way an indication of what the actual draw might look like. Here we go:

I repeat, these are not actual draws.

Ok, moving on. Each team plays the other 4 in their pool 2 times, home and away, totaling 8 games per team. Additionally, each team plays games with all the teams of the other pool as well, in the following way:

• It plays 4 of the 5 teams in the other group once (home/away to be decided randomly)
• It plays the remaining team in the other group twice (home and away)
• All this is randomly decided, much before the tournament begins
• This means each team will play an additional 6 games in the group stage.
• Total Games per team: 8+6=14, the same as last three editions

Smartly done, if it has been clearly understood by fans. We hope its clear. In our example, let us suppose we are Mumbai Indians and the team we play twice in Pool B is Rajasthan Royals. Then we will play Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Rajasthan and Pune twice, and Punjab, Delhi, Deccan and Kochi once, totaling 2*5   +  1*4  = 14 games.

Every team in Pool A will have a corresponding team in Pool B whom they will play twice.

Hope the group stages are clear. Let me know if otherwise.

Playoffs and Final
Once the group stage is over, the top 4 teams (overall, irrespective of the Pool they are in) qualify for the Playoffs. Let the teams qualifying be Team 1, Team 2, Team 3 and Team 4, in that order.

Now, there will be three games to decide the finalists.

Game 1: Team 1 vs Team 2

Game 2: Team 3 vs Team 4

Game 3: Winner Game 2 vs Loser Game 1

Final: Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 3

CLT20 qualifiers: Finalists and Loser Game 3

This should sort things out for everyone. If you have any further query, let me know and I would try to resolve them.

Leave your response in the comments section below.

Coming up: How will franchises pick players, and all the talk about retention, catchment and beyond. Watch this space.

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How was there going to be 94 games?
There are 10 teams (remember pune and kochi). So if each team plays the other 9 teams twice, it comes out to be 90 games in all. Add to that the 2 semis, the final and the CLT20 qualifier third place game, and you get a 94 match tournament.

How 74 now? Who will my team not play?
Now, the 10 teams have to be divided into two groups of 5 each. Then the top two from each group progress to the semis. Thanks to Shridhar Jaju for correcting me. Here, in his own words, is how it will unfold:

5 teams in each group will play 2 matches (home and away) against the other teams from their group. That makes it 20 matches in Group A and 20 matches in Group B.

After that, the top 3 teams from each group (6 teams in all) play home and away matches against each other. That will make it 30 matches in this stage.

And then we will have the 2 semi-finals, the 3rd place play-off and the finals. That makes it 74 in all.

Thanks again, Shridhar.

Wow, it seems even Shridhar’s format has been found to be false. Our good friend Aditya lets us know that we have been wrong all along. Thank you Aditya.

So to lay to rest all speculations, here is what the format really is, according to the ever so trustworthy cricinfo:

League phase
Every team will play the same number of league games (14, seven home and seven away) as in previous seasons with the following break-up: each team will play the other four in its group both home and away (eight matches), four of the teams in the other group once (four matches, either home or away) and the remaining team in the other group twice, both home and away. A random draw will decide the composition of the groups as well as who plays whom across the groups once and twice.

Playoffs
The teams that finish first and second in the league table will contest the first playoff, which is effectively a semi-final (Game A). The teams that finish third and fourth will play each other in a knockout that is effectively a quarter-final (Game B). The loser of Game A will play the winner of Game B in a match (Game C) that will decide the second finalist that will play the winner of Game A in the grand final. This playoff format was previously used in New Zealand’s domestic one-day tournament last season.

I have understood how it works and would be coming up with an info graphic soon.

Here are a few FAQ’s

When is the IPL gonna start?
It commences on April 2. A good thing that it is after the world cup.

Any other announcement?
Yes. The spending cap on players has been increased to 9 million USD. It was earlier fixed at 7 million.

Also, the existing 8 teams are allowed to retain 4 players (max 2 foreign and max 3 Indians).

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This doesn’t mean that he will now be required to fly those fighter planes and save the country during wars, this is just a respectful gesture by the Indian Air Force.

Technically, the Air Force is allowed to confer upon honorary positions to citizens who have made a substantially great contribution towards the country. Sachin Tendulkar obviously fits the bill, though he might disagree, the humble person that he is.

An interesting point to note here is that no civilian in the past has been honored as Group Captain. Yes, this is a first for the Air Force. Sachin Tendulkar is first here as well. He’s heard that a lot of times in his career of course.

In comment, all he said was:

“It is a dream come true”

This I find strange. Did he dream that he wanted to be “Group Captain” in the Indian Air Force? I doubt it. Mr. Tendulkar, you amaze me all the time.

He also went on to say:

“It is indeed a great honor that I have been considered for honorary Group Captain in the IAF. As an Indian I am proud to be associated with the dynamic force and I shall do my very best to be brand ambassador for the force”

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NDTV Cricket reports:

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Scotland Yard officers would question Butt on Friday over how marked notes were discovered from his hotel room and in his locker at the Lord’s cricket ground.

These are unfiltered reports coming in. We would update as soon as there is more information.

The implications can be immense if these reports are confirmed to be true, though they do appear to be legit. The dark times are continuing in the cricket world and have given no indication to stop soon.

Meanwhile, all the three Pakistani players allegedly involved as of now – Salman Butt, Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif have been suspended by the ICC till further notice.

Watch this space.

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