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The IPL, six weeks of razzmatazz and TV with a little sport, is predicted to double last year’s takings. Jason Burke in The Guardian:
It is already big and brash. It is about to get substantially bigger and brasher. At 8pm on Friday, hundreds of millions of people in India, from tea shops in Mumbai slums to plush Delhi suburbs and thousands of villages in between, will sit down to watch the Deccan Chargers play the Kolkata Knight Riders in the opening match of the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“If you thought the first two seasons were the ultimate cricket-meets-entertainment blockbusters then you haven’t seen anything yet,” enthused the Financial Express newspaper.
The IPL phenomenon cuts across all barriers of class, caste and income. At the exclusive Tollygunge Club in Kolkata – or Calcutta as it is often still known – staff will take a few hours out while members halt their golf, squash and riding. Both clientele and staff (more surreptitiously) will watch the fast and furious 20-over cricket shown on a big screen on the wall of the main bar. “It doesn’t matter who wins. It’s the game that counts,” said Sajad Mundal, the chief steward. For 10-year-old Anvam Najpal, sipping a soft drink that Mundal had just brought him, the tournament has already started. At his exclusive private school, a mini IPL, with just 10 overs played, is already under way. He is a Deccan Chargers fan. His dad however supports the Delhi Daredevils.
“But we will all watch it together,” he said. “Mum’s not that interested, but she’ll watch it with us. I really like seeing all the different people from all over the world playing together in unity.” More:
In Tehelka, Shantanu Guha Ray looks at the deteriorating relationship between Shah Rukh Khan and Sourav Ganguly and says this is the reason why Shah Rukh dropped the word Kolkata from his Knight Riders’ team.
A FORTNIGHT AGO, as he stepped onto the tarmac of Mumbai airport after his meeting with Shah Rukh Khan, Sourav Ganguly picked up his Blackberry and whispered “I do not trust anyone, really, I do not trust anyone!” The former Indian skipper, on a high barely a month before because of his involvement in the selection of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team and the cheer leaders, had a premonition of what would happen once the team landed in Cape Town for the trial matches before the start of the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). A week before the crucial meeting at Mannat, home of KKR owner and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, Ganguly had skirmished with coach John Buchanan over the latter’s multiple captaincy theory and had set Kolkata afire by first disagreeing with, and then agreeing to the format.
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Cheerleaders, slapgate and, now, a showdown between Shane Warne and Sourav Ganguly. Will the controversties at IPL never cease? CricInfo has both sides of the story.
First, Warne is upset at Ganguly’s refusal to walk
The Indian Premier League feels increasingly like the Shane Warne Show. Tonight, after his Rajasthan Royals side made it four wins in a row in front of a partisan crowd at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur, Warne launched into a stinging attack on Sourav Ganguly, the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, for what he perceived to be a blatant disregard for the spirit of the game. He seemed to have a point, but right now Warne could probably tell you the earth was flat and you’d believe him.
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Then, Ganguly says, ‘I just want to laugh at what Warne is saying’.
Sourav Ganguly, captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, has dismissed Shane Warne’s criticism of his on-field behaviour, even questioning his moral right to comment about the spirit of the game. Warne, leading the Rajasthan Royals, first slammed Ganguly for taking too long to come out to bat and then condemned his attitude towards the IPL’s Spirit of Cricket agreement when he questioned a catch taken by Graeme Smith.
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