England are new T20 World champions 2010

Bridgetown (Barbados): Craig Kieswetter struck a sparkling 63 as England were crowned Twenty20 world champions after crushing Australia by seven wickets in the summit clash to win their maiden ICC tournament title here on Sunday.

Kieswetter made the much vaunted Australian bowling attack look like pedestrian with an explosive 49-ball innings which was studded with seven fours and two sixes as England chased down the target of 148 with three overs to spare in the grand finale at the Kensington Oval here.

He was given able support by Kevin Pietersen who made a valuable 31-ball 47 which had four boundaries and a six in it.

The awesome pair brought the hitherto mighty Australians to their knees by stitching 111 runs from just 68 balls for the second wicket to set up the win for England.

Earlier, England produced a clinical bowling performance to restrict Australia to 147 for six, made possible mainly due to David Hussey's 54-ball 59, after Paul Collingwood inserted their Ashes rivals after winning the toss.

By beating Australia in the final today, England won their first ICC event title after finishing runners-up in three 50-over World Cups -- in 1979, 1987 and 1992 -- and Champions Trophy at home in 2004.

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I am still chairman

Thank you fans for applauding each of the 1708 fours & 585 sixes hit in #IPL 2010. You make ipl wat it is

Thank you all for your message of support. It is really appreciated. I am still chairman of IPL. Just suspended. Wait - we have just begun.

Goodbye Lalit Modi

The Governing Council of the IPL served IPL Chairman Lalit Modi a formal email stating his ouster as the IPL chairman just after the grand finale of the DLF Indian Premier League. Lalit Modi is facing 22 charges of impropriety including accepting a multi-million dollar kickback while assigning the telecast rights for IPL matches and attempting to rig bids for IPL Kochi and IPL Pune.

On Monday morning, The Governing Council of the IPL made Chirayu Amin as the interim chief of the IPL.

On the other hand defiant Modi said to NDTV, “Are they so scared of me attending the meeting? Are they so scared of the truth?”

This whole IPL mess looks nothing less than a bollywood story where a hero is turned villain but what matters us is what is going to happen to this new cricket format which is loved by one and all.

Presentation Ceremony DLF IPL Final

The mega event ended today with Chennai Super Kings winning the final against Mumbai Indians. Few awards were given in the presentation ceremony.

Suresh Raina got the maximum sixes award. He also got the Man of the Match award. After winning the match he said “Our staff have put in lot of hard work. I’m really happy for the team. It’s been a great year for us.

Andrew Symonds got the ‘Karbol Kamaal catches’ award for the IPL 3.

Sourabh Tiwary was named the Under-23 success of the tournament due to his brilliant 419 runs

Kingfisher Fairplay award went to Chennai Super Kings.

Orange Cap was presented by Nita Ambani to Sachin Tendulkar

Purple Cap was presented by the owner of Deccan Chargers to Pragyan Ojha.

Sachin Tendulkar captain of Mumbai Indians got a cheque of Rs 3 crores for being the runners-up said “A couple of important catches cost us, the start also.. we could have accelerated a little bit more, it was just one of those tough days, I want to thank all the Mumbai Indians supporters. Towards the end, Pollard came and it was a bit too late. It’s been a terrific journey, it’s been an honour to be part of the Mumbai Indians, the support staff has also been tremendous. It’s been a special tournament for us, barring today. Most likely I’ll be playing next year as well.”

MS Dhoni lifted the IPL trophy and collected Rs 6 crores as winners said “Credit goes to the team, we were under pressure in the middle of he tournament, excited to lift the trophy today. We were happy with the total, the Mumbai wicket supports the seamers and Bollinger did well early, Ashwin has been doing a superb job with new ball. We were able to create the kind of pressure to get wickets. The IPL gets better and better, the benchmark keeps rising each year. The players will sweat more because of extra teams next year, the pressure will be on the office-bearers to make it further big.”

Ending the gala event, chairman of IPL Lalit Modi “For many years I have lived a dream that India would have a sports league that we would be proud of. We have had some off-field issues that are mainly due to half-truths. If there is any flouting of rules, I take full responsibilities. I assure that IPL is clean and transparent. We should not allow this brand to be diluted. We must help this evolve to be stronger and better. As the proverb goes ” The obstacle is our path”, we have faced several challenges. I thank all my team members, team members, BCCI officials, sponsors and everyone for their support. All I wanted is to leave a footprint in this glorious game. My final thank you is to all the fans, we missed you last year and it’s your passion that keeps us going. Thank you!! “

Congrats To Chennai Super Kings For Winning DLF IPL 2010

WE wish Chennai Super Kings heartiest congratualtions for becoming the Champions Of DLF IPL 2010

The grand finale of DLF IPL 2010 ended with a spectacular ceremony today and in the end it was Chennai Super Kings who won this years mega cricketing event by beating all odds and winning the final against the most consistent team, Mumbai Indians.

Cricket fans were waiting to see this gala finale and it had a perfect ending with MS Dhoni lifting the trophy after a superb game of cricket. Millions of fans around the globe enjoyed 60 thrilling matches in this season. Now it ended with a high note as an Indian captain won this year’s DLF Indian Premier League title.

Earlier, in the match, Chennai Super Kings won the toss and elected to bat first. They got off really slowly as Hayden looked totally out of form and was not able to play his shots. But M Vijay played some good shots and took CSK to 44 runs in 7.2 overs before getting out in an attempt to increase the run rate. In the very next over, Hayden also got out and CSK were 47/2 in 8.4 overs. Suresh Raina and Badrinath then played cautiously and crossed the 50 run mark. Badrinath then got out after scoring just 14 and CSK were 67/3 in 11.2 overs. Now all responsibility was on the shoulders of Captain Cool Dhoni and Suresh Raina. They both played superbly and took the score past 100. Suresh Raina was the star for Chennai as he scored 57 runs off just 35 balls. It was his brilliant batting which helped Chennai Super Kings post a total of 168/5 in 20 overs.

Mumbai Indians needed 169 to win DLF IPL trophy and the opened with S Dhawan and S Tendulkar. Dhawan got out for a duck and in the second over leaving Mumbai at 1/1 in 1.4 overs. Tendulkar and Nayar then steadied the innings and Mumbai were 33/1 at the end of 6 overs. Sachin and Nayar then took the score to 67 in 11th over, Nayar was run out and in a surprise move, Harbhajan Singh was sent to bat. He also got out for just 1 and Mumbai were 73/3 in 12 overs. Sachin and A Rayudu then took the team score 99. Jakati go the priced wicket of Tendulkar and S Tiwary in the same over and it looked Chennai Super Kings would be back in the game. CSK then got the wicket of Duminy and Mumbai were struggling at 114/6 in 17 overs. They needed another 54 runs in 18 balls and had 4 wickets in hand. K Pollard played a cameo and scored 21 runs in an over and the equation to 33 needed from last 2 overs. But Chennai bowler Morkel kept his head cool and bowled a superb 19th over and took the important wicket of Pollard. It was all over for Mumbai as they needed 27 from last over and they could manage just 146/9 and thus lost the finals to Chennai by 22 runs.

Zee set to revitalise ICL

It plans to take the tournament to the Gulf and also rope in film stars to play In order to counter the heat generated by the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) launched by BCCI, the rebel cricket body — Indian Cricket League (ICL) — is all set to take its tournament outside the country.

Not only will the Subhash Chandra-owned Twenty20 tournament go to West Asia in September, its prize money will also go up. ICL will also launch a high-voltage multi-media campaign beginning August-September other than considering roping in film stars to not only own cricket teams, but to play the Twenty20 matches.

The bottom line is that the Essel Group is gearing up to take on the Indian Premier League which has kept television viewers glued to Sony’s SET Max channel.

Says a senior Zee executive: “The ICL is now very big on the agenda for the group. Several steps are being taken to increase the interest of both the viewers and the advertisers when the tournament starts in September-October this year. Don’t forget, we saw the big potential in the Twenty20 format much before anyone else did.”

To lend freshness to the game, the ICL executives are looking at several international cricketing venues in the Gulf. The belief is that the company may finally zero in on Dubai or Sharjah as Taj Television, the holding company of Ten Sports that shows the matches, is based in Dubai. Zee owns a 50 per cent stake in Ten Sports.

However, in the face of competition from IPL, establishing ICL as a vibrant television property will be an uphill task for the Essel Group.

“IPL is a successful television property with consistent ratings of about 4-5, similar to any popular show on a general entertainment channel. The initial tournaments of ICL got ratings of 1-2. To attract the viewers to another Twenty20 tournament will be a tough challenge for the ICL team,” says a senior media planner. Winning against IPL will be a challenge on other counts as well.

For a start, IPL is an official tournament with the backing of the International Cricket Council (ICC) while ICL is a rebel league comprising either retired international cricketers or not so known cricket players from both within and outside the country.

Also, the ICL matches aired on Zee Sports and later on Ten Sports as well, managed to attract viewers for 6-12 minutes on an average. The average time spent on Set Max (for IPL) has been over 40 minutes.

Himanshu Modi, business head, ICL, however, is unfazed. In an emailed response to Business Standard earlier, he said: “It is important for everyone involved or following the league to understand that in terms of product life cycle we are in the introductory stage. Like any other sporting product, the ICL will need time to build its support base…”

IPL has become a phenomenal television success, agree advertising experts. “If any one has to even match its intensity in future, they will have to put in something ‘extra’,” a senior executive in an advertising agency concludes.

International venues and celebrities may work wonders for the sub-continent expats, but for the viewers back home, much more may be required,” a senior executive in a Gurgaon-based advertising agency concludes.

Source:business-standard.com