MUMBAI: The first season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is over. Moves are already afoot to garner fresh talent for the second season. Emerging Media, which owns the IPL’s Jaipur franchise, is scouring new team members from children of railway station porters, chemists and garage mechanics.

Not resting on its laurels, the IPL winner is to flag off its Cricket Star talent hunt. The search will visit eight cities within a span of 45 days. The winner gets to play in the third season, in 2010.

The winner of the inaugural edition of Cricket Star last year, Sukhvir Singh, is a 20-year-old fast bowler son of a bus driver from a Punjab village . He was sponsored for training at the Leicestershire County Cricket Club.

Runnerup Dinesh Salunkhe, 21-yearold leg spinner got to play in the just concluded IPL. For the second season, and this year’s winner of the talent hunt, Srideep Mangela is a 20-yearold left-hand batsman, from Thane, Mumbai. He gets to play in 2009. Former India cricket coach Greg Chappell was part of the search exercise for the past two years.
Read the rest of this entry »

In a conscious effort to ensure that the proposed Pakistan Premier League (PPL) does not look like a carbon copy of the hugely successful IPL, the cricket board in Karachi is toying with ideas like allowing five foreigners in the playing XI of a participating team.

“We want the PPL to be a bit different from the Indian Premier League. We want the PPL to be distinguished by itself. We plan to announce our concept and plans during or after the Asia Cup,” Shafqat Naghmi, the PCB chief operating officer, told the ‘Samaa’ television channel on Friday.
Read the rest of this entry »

Mumbai: Twenty a day! That is how many Rs 100 fake Indian Premier League (IPL) jerseys street vendor Amit Pandey is selling in Mumbai’s Fashion Street, even though the tournament has ended.

Strangely, it is not the local team Mumbai Indians or the champions Rajasthan Royals whose jerseys are topping his sales charts. It is Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders gold and black that seems to have struck err… gold.
Read the rest of this entry »

KOLKATA: After witnessing a near 4% dip in sales in the first quarter (January-March) of 2008, TV sales have yet again gained momentum during April-May.

The industry saw TV sales growing by 35% during the period, courtesy the unbridled cricket mania.

The surge in demand comes at a time when TV sales normally remain flat. What’s more, manufacturers have seen robust demand from not just the metros but also rural markets. The industry feels the IPL-led TV sales will form a large chunk to meet the industry’s sales target of 12.5 million this year.
Read the rest of this entry »

For a man who has over 1,000 international wickets in his kitty, a mediocre IPL is hardly something to be worried about. Muttiah Muralitharan’s wicket-taking spree might have diminished in the tournament, but what really defines the man is his competitive outlook towards each game and, of course, the smile at the end of every delivery.

His eight wickets in the competition have come at an unusual 43.92, but something the stats won’t reveal is that his bowling, especially in the post-powerplay, has been difficult to get away with.
Read the rest of this entry »

From reigning queens to poor country cousins and back again. This appears to be the fate of the saas-bahu soaps, thanks to IPL. With the cricket fever now coming down, the mainstay of television viewers is back in action.

Polls suggest that popular serials that attracted above average TRPs had to bite the dust for the past 44 days. But with the IPL over, viewer loyalty is back.

For instance, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi , that had a TRP of 4.4 during IPL, bounced back to 5.4 on Monday, a day after the cricket final.
Read the rest of this entry »

The inaugural Indian Premier League has been a nation-wide hit and there is no second opinion about that. A lot has been said about how it has given a platform to youngsters to showcase their talent and how rivals have turned friends on the field and vice-versa.

Now with the culmination of the first season, it’s time to see what are the side effects and after-effects of this cricket carnival. Positives are there for everyone to see. But what lies ahead for cricket as a game?
Read the rest of this entry »

The inaugural IPL season is over, but for the eight franchisee owners the hard work has just begun.

Riding on the hype, franchisee owners are exploring avenues such as maximising sponsorship revenues by hiking fees for new sponsors, extensive brand building on localised platforms and marketing the event to other countries from where they have player representation, among others.

Almost all the team owners have begun drawing up plans on how best to monetise the second IPL season, barely 48 hours after the first season drew to a close. ET has learnt that most franchisee owners are now considering appointing dedicated teams only to market and manage their cricket teams.
Read the rest of this entry »

NEW DELHI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) season is over, but the fun and games have just begun. In order to leverage the T20 craze and create new revenue streams, event managers and IPL franchisee teams are planning to play independent matches that will be outside the purview of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the IPL.

Shane Warne is reported to have said that his Rajasthan Royals will play Victoria (his former Australian state team). Other teams such as Mumbai Indians and Kings X1 Punjab may also consider these options. The idea is to create property on the lines of the Manchester United programme whereby Man United plays matches in Asia and the US.
Read the rest of this entry »

With curtains on the IPL cricket tournament, Bollywood is all set to regain its title of the king of entertainment as a slew of big-budget movies are slated for release.

Major releases were held back as the 44-day-cricket tournament grabbed all the eyeballs giving Bollywood a run for its money.

While the main attraction in June will be Ram Gopal Verma’s ‘Sarkar Raj’, July will see the clash of debutants Harman Baweja and Imram Khan in ‘Love Story 2050′ and ‘Jaane Tu…’ respectively on July 4, followed by Apoorva Lakhia’s ‘Mission Istanbul’ on July 11.
Read the rest of this entry »