IPL tremors felt in Under-19 world cup

As per the guidelines of IPL there should be atleast four under-22 players in the line-up of a team. It’s a tough task for franchises, as they have to spot and hire the right talent. Now, the agents of various franchise are having a eye on performance of Indian players in the ongoing under-19 world cup.
Seeing this development, BCCI is worried that the players may get distracted, as they might try to impress the agents rather than playing for the country. For this reason the board has requested players not to have contact with any person related to IPL until the tournament gets over.
Whatever may be the case, I hope that the best players are picked for playing in the IPL arena. A few months back it was very tough to pursue cricket as a career because of difficulty in getting a break in Indian team as there are only 15 vacancies. In order to impress selectors, younger players had to toil themselves playing in Ranji trophy matches on lifeless pitches, under hot sun. With the advent of IPL things are not the same for in demand young players.

Australian Government worried over IPL Security

This is absolutely ridiculous. TimesNow is reporting that the Australian Goverment is worried that a Terrorist Attack is imminent in India around the time of the IPL and doesn’t want Australian players in India. The Department of Foreign Affairs of Australia issued a strong warning about a possible terror attack on Indian cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. The Australian goverment is also worried about security in Pakistan, casting a doubt over Australia’s tour of Pakistan.
I don’t know what exactly they are worried about, but I think the Australian players are not going to be too worried, especially after the ridiculously high salaries that they will be receiving for playing. Heck, if you pay me $1,350,000, I’ll play in Iraq!

Olympic sports lobby paranoid about IPL

The voices against IPL are rising day by day after the historic auction on Feb 20th, because of many so called reasons. The latest to join the proceedings are the people associated with Olympic Sports.
Since BCCI’s Twenty20 extravaganza has potential to become one of the most lucrative sporting events in Asia, so personalities from many fields(including Bollywood) are putting all efforts to mint money from this event. This has become major cause of concern for some people as there might be diversion of sponsorship from Olympic Sports to IPL and in turn may effect preparation of athletes for upcoming Beijing Olympics.
Totally unexpected development, but it was inevitable, as no one in India is really interested in the Olympics, no one wins anything. It’s better to have a tournament amongst ourselves, because that way at least one of us will win.

A Lot of pundits were warning this kind of thing will start to happen, but it is inevitable. New Zealanders Daniel Vettori, Jacob Oram and Brendon McCullum want to show up 10 days late for New Zealand’s official tour of England because they want to play in the IPL. The England tour starts April 27th, but these 3 folks want to stay back until at least May 5th.

“I hope I’m available for a number of (IPL) games for obvious reasons but we have to sit back and wait.” Vettori said. I like how he euphemistically says “for obvious reasons“. But you can’t really blame them. If you get a job offer at a new company worth lots more than what your current employer is paying, the urge to switch, and switch fast, is going to be irresistible.

Ponting Pissed Off With Symonds

After being able to get just $400,000 compared to Symonds $1,340,000, Ponting lashed out today against Symonds, saying there was no good reason why he got so much less than Symonds.

“I thought I might have been able to attract a little bit more than that. The fact I haven’t made a lot of runs over the last couple of weeks probably hasn’t helped much. But realistically, we as Australian players probably won’t be able to take part in the first couple of years of the event anyway” he said.

Ponting is also angry that Symonds will not be going to Pakistan in May, saying that would be a “breach of contract” with Cricket Australia.

While Pointing is busy with all this mudslinging, I don’t think Symonds is even paying attention. He’s probably busy counting all the money.