Australian captain Ricky Ponting has urged cricket administrators to create space in the calendar for the Indian Premier League.
Ponting returned yesterday from his four-match stint with Kolkata and will join his Australian team mates in camp on Sunday to prepare for the West Indies tour.Ponting says the IPL has a place in the game.”They’d be silly if they didn’t put it on the calendar,” he said.
“I think there’s a real danger there that international players might just see the glitz and glamour of this event and not want to play international cricket anymore, which I don’t think would be great for the game, so I know that all the administrators around the world will looking into some way of finding a six week window for this tournament every season.”
Source:radioaustralia.net
Bangalore, May 1: Karnataka off-spinner Ryan Ninan is most likely to replace the banned Harbhajan Singh in the Mumbai Indians’ IPL team.The 23-year-old offie received a call on Thursday from Mumbai team manager Rahul Sanghvi asking him to report to the team on Friday in Mumbai.
“I have been asked to come on Friday and I will play a practice game,” Ninan confirmed to this newspaper.”If I impress the team management then I might get to sign the contract soon,” he added.Mumbai’s search for a new player was necessitated by the fact that Harbhajan — who led the team in the first three matches in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar — was hit with a 11-match ban for slapping India teammate S. Sreesanth that ruled him out of the tournament.
If the under-rated Ninan clinches the deal, he will become fourth Karnataka player and the first bowler to join the Mumbai Indians after Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey and Gaurav Dhiman.Ninan has had a chequered career for the state but it has not been his fault.Ignored by the state selectors despite having impressed in the local league, Ninan lost out to the KSCA secretary Brijesh Patel’s son, Udit.If Ninan does get a look-in, it might turn out to be the perfect launch pad for him.
KOLKATA: Injuries appear to have landed Sachin Tendulkar on a sticky wicket, especially on the insurance front. Did you know Sachin’s inability to play the first four matches of IPL due to a pre-existing injury robs him of a $7.8-million personal accident & death benefit cover.
Worse, it also denies him a $1-million mediclaim insurance, along with another undisclosed cover for luggage loss and theft. In fact, the ‘little champion’ will remain uncovered until his doctor declares him fit. Sachin’s covers were offered by Oriental Insurance and UK’s Longreach purely for IPL matches.
In insurance lingo, a pre-existing injury refers to injuries suffered before the cover was sold. In Sachin’s case, the covers become effective only once the doctors declare him fit to play the IPL matches.
“Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai Indians bought the cover for Sachin, but it will come into force only when Sachin is declared fit by his doctor. Sachin had sustained a groin injury prior to commencement of the IPL. Hence his covers will not be applicable until he starts playing. He can play only when declared fit,” OIC deputy-general manager R Malhotra told ET.
“We had a clause inserted in the covers after discussions with IPL authorities that if a player fails to play any match due to pre-existing injuries, his covers will not work until and unless the player is declared fit. However, we learn that Sachin may be able to play his next match and his cover will come into vogue then,” the official added.
In case you forgot, the master blaster suffered a groin injury during India’s first test against South Africa in late-March. The first IPL fixture was held on April 18, by when his injury hadn’t healed. Since it was sustained before IPL kicked off, the insurers are treating it as a pre-existing injury.
Dimitri Mascarenhas, the Hampshire captain, has swapped the drizzle of England for the warmth and riches of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and says the rest of the England squad are desperate to follow him.
Mascarenhas has now joined up with the Rajasthan Royals for five IPL matches and is expected to make his debut in tomorrow’s game against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The England all-rounder says he has attracted some envious glances from teammates this season, many of whom have been unable to compete in the event because it clashes with the county season and the Test series against New Zealand.A number of England players, including Kevin Pietersen and Michael Vaughan have expressed a desire to be given the freedom to play in the event and Mascarenhas says they are not alone.
“The England players are desperate to play in the IPL. Next year they will all put their hands up to come and play.” The ECB are currently investigating the possibility of setting up a rival Twenty20 league, but that is unlikely to become a reality until 2010. In the meantime Mascarenhas is focusing on making his mark on the competition, before he returns to England.”The biggest challenge for the Royals from hereon is to achieve consistent winning results,” Mascarenhas added. “I can also come back for the semi-finals and final should the team get there.”
Mascarenhas says he has been impressed with the Royals squad and particularly Shane Warne, his new captain.”I have not seen all the players up close, but Warne definitely has an influence on the team. He’s an inspiring guy and people listen to him,” he said.
The Indian Premier League may only be 17 games old but its impact is already being felt in the Bartercard Power Rankings with four IPL teams bursting through into the top ten .With the worlds best players taking part the IPL can lay claim to not only having the biggest stars in the world but having the best team too, the Chennai Super Kings lead by Mahendra Singh Dhoni have swept all before them winning four games out of four to enter the rankings in first place.
The Super Kings have set the pace in the IPL winning all four of their games in commanding style, with Dhoni, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey forging a strong batting lineup the Super Kings have scored almost 800 runs.The impact of Dhoni’s men has been felt most by the Victorian Bushrangers who after 15 months at the top of the Bartercard Power Rankings slip down to second place just head of the Kings XI Punjab.The Kings XI captained by Yuvraj Singh have relied on their experienced bowling line up including Bret Lee and Sreesanth to restrict their opponents to low totals before cruising to easy victories.
The IPL’s strength is boosted further with Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals in 5th place followed by the Delhi DareDevils in 6th, the seismic shift in power to the sub continent is reflected by the fact that the Leicestershire Foxes are the only English County in the top ten.With the battle for Twenty20 supremacy underway in India the ICL has taken a back seat this month but the Chennai Superstars, winners of the inaugural ICL Twenty20 Championship last year, remain in the Bartercard Power Rankings top ten in 9th place.The Lahore Badshahs, last months surprise story have crashed back down to earth with a bump falling 12 places in the Bartercard Power Rankings form 3rd to 15th after suffering defeat in the ICL’s best of three Edelweiss 20s Challenge Final against the Hyderabad Heroes, the heroes 2-0 victory sees them end the month in 38th place.
In South Africa the Nashua Titans claimed their second Standard Bank Pro20 championship by beating the Nashua Dolphins by 18 runs, despite the win the Titans fall 9 places in the Bartercard Power Rankings to 27th.The ratings are based on a number of important factors including runs scored, totals chased, the loss of wickets and margins of victory. A teams rating is then worked out by dividing the points scored in each game by the number of matches played, the totals are then given to the nearest whole number.