IPL: April 2008

Deccan Chargers Vs Rajasthan Royals

24 April 2008
	(H) Deccan Chargers 214/5 (20 overs)	vs	Rajasthan Royals 217/7 (19.5 overs)	Rajasthan won by 3 wickets Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad Umpires: Asad Rauf and Mark Benson Man of the Match: Yusuf Pathan
	Andrew Symonds 117* (53) Yusuf Pathan 2/20 (2 overs)	(Scorecard)	Graham Smith 71 (45) Shahid Afridi 3/28 (4 overs)

Chennai Super Kings Vs Mumbai Indians

23 April 2008
	(H) Chennai Super Kings 208/5 (20 overs)	vs	Mumbai Indians 202/7 (20 overs)	Chennai won by 6 runs M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai Umpires: Daryl Harper and GA Pratapkumar Man of the Match: Matthew Hayden
	Matthew Hayden 81 (46) Musavir Khote 2/29 (3 overs)	(Scorecard)	Abhishek Nayar 45* (20) Joginder Sharma 2/29 (4 overs)

Standings

Team	Played	Won	Lost	Points	Net Run Rate
Kolkata Knight Riders	2	2	0	4	+3.764
Delhi Daredevils	2	2	0	4	+2.988
Chennai Super Kings	2	2	0	4	+0.975
Rajasthan Royals	3	2	1	4	-0.419
Bangalore Royal Challengers	2	1	1	2	-3.423
Mumbai Indians	2	0	2	0	-0.254
Kings XI Punjab	2	0	2	0	-1.365
Deccan Chargers	3	0	3	0	-1.339

Standings

Team	Played	Won	Lost	Points	Net Run Rate
Kolkata Knight Riders	2	2	0	4	+3.764
Delhi Daredevils	1	1	0	2	+2.253
Chennai Super Kings	1	1	0	2	+1.650
Rajasthan Royals	2	1	1	2	-0.692
Bangalore Royal Challengers	2	1	1	2	-3.423
Mumbai Indians	1	0	1	0	-0.191
Deccan Chargers	1	0	1	0	-0.395
Kings XI Punjab	2	0	2	0	-1.365

Mumbai Indians Vs Bangalore Royal Challengers

Bangalore Royal Challengers defeated Mumbai Indians. Mark Boucher, Kallis, Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli all of them played well and Boucher finally guided the victory.

Controversies

The BCCI had found itself in the middle of many conflicts with various cricket boards around the world as a result of the IPL. The main point of contention was that signed players should always be available to their country for international tours, even if it overlaps with the IPL season. To address this, the BCCI officially requested that the ICC institute a time period in the International Tours Program solely for the IPL season. This request was not granted at a subsequent meeting held by the ICC.

Conflicts with the England and Wales Cricket Board

Because the inaugural IPL season coincided with the County Championship season as well as England’s tour of New Zealand, the ECB and local County Cricket Boards raised their concerns to the BCCI over players. The ECB made it abundantly clear that they would not sign No Objection Certificates for players—a prerequisite for playing in the IPL. Chairmen of the local Counties also made it clear that players contracted to them were required to fulfill their commitment to their county. As a result of this, no English player signed on for either of the two IPL player auctions and to date, Dimitri Mascarenhas remains the only English player to have signed with the IPL.

Another result of the ECB’s on-going fear of players fleeing to the IPL was a proposed radical response of creating their own Twenty20 tournament that would be similar in structure to the IPL. The league—titled the English Premier League—would feature 21 teams in three groups of seven and would occur towards the end of the summer season. The ECB has already enlisted the aid of Texas Billionaire Allen Stanford to launch the proposed league. Stanford was the brains behind the sucessful Stanford 20/20, a tournament that has run twice in the West Indies.

Conflicts with Cricket Australia

The BCCI also experienced run-ins with Cricket Australia over player availability for Australia’s tour of the West Indies and CA’s desire for global protection of their sponsors. CA had feared that sponsors of the IPL (and its teams) that directly competed with their sponsors would jeopardize already existing arrangements. This issue was eventually resolved and it was also agreed upon that Australian players would be fully available for the West Indies tour.

Conflicts with the Pakistan Cricket Board

Many players from the Pakistan Cricket Team who were not offered renewed central contracts (or decided to reject new contracts) decided to join the rival Indian Cricket League. Two such players—Naved-ul-Hasan and Mushtaq Ahmed also held contracts with English Counties. The PCB decided to issue No Objection Certificates for these players to play with their county teams on the basis that since they were no longer contracted to the PCB, there was no point in not granting them their NOCs. The latter did not sit well with the BCCI, as it went against the hard line stance they had taken on players who joined the ICL. The case of Shoaib Akhtar is also a big issue.

Conflicts with other Boards

Smaller boards like the WICB and NZCB have raised concerns over the impact the IPL will have on their player development and already fragile financial situation. Since players from smaller cricketing nations are not compensated as much, they have more motivation to join the lucrative IPL. The latter has obvious negative effects on their national development of cricket.

Media restrictions

Initially the IPL enforced strict guidelines to media covering Premier League matches, consistent with their desire to use the same model sports leagues in North America use in regards to media coverage. Notable guidelines imposed included the restriction to use images taken during the event unless purchased from Cricket.com, owned by Live Current Media Inc (who won the rights to such images) and the prohibition of live coverage from the cricket grounds. Media agencies also had to agree to upload all images taken at IPL matches to the official website. This was deemed unacceptable by print media around the world. Upon the threat of boycott, the IPL eased up on several of the the restrictions. On April 15th, 2008 a revised set of guidelines was issued by the IPL offering major concessions to the print media and agencies.

However specialist cricket websites such as cricinfo and cricket365 continued to be banned from providing live coverage from the grounds and from purchasing match images from press agencies. As a result, on April 18th major international agencies including Reuters and AFP announced their decision to provide no coverage of the IPL.

Conflicts with players

In October 2007, Mohammad Yousuf joined the Indian Premier League just few days after canceling his contract with Indian Cricket League. ICL then slapped a case on Mohammed Yousuf preventing him from playing in IPL. On 1 April 2008 Shoaib Akhtar was banned for 5 years by the PCB. As a result he is not allowed to play in IPL until his ban is revoked.

Knight Riders Vs Deccan Chargers

20 April 2008
	Kolkata Knight Riders 112/5 (19 overs)	vs	Deccan Chargers 110 all out (18.4 overs)	Kolkata won by 5 wickets Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Billy Bowden and Krishna Hariharan Man of the Match: David Hussey
	David Hussey 38* (43) Chaminda Vaas 2/9 (3 overs)	(Scorecard)	Andrew Symonds 32 (39) Murali Kartik 3/17 (3.4 overs)

Daredevils Vs Royals

19 April 2008
	Delhi DareDevils 132/1 (15.1 overs)	vs	Rajasthan Royals 129/8 (20 overs)	Delhi won by 9 wickets Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi Umpires: Aleem Dar and GA Pratapkumar Man of the Match: Farveez Maharoof
	Gautam Gambhir 58* (46) Shane Watson 1/31 (4 overs)	(Scorecard)	Ravindra Jadeja 29 (23) Farveez Maharoof 2/11 (4 overs)

Kings XI Vs Super Kings

19 April 2008
	Kings XI Punjab 207/4 (20 overs)	vs	Chennai Super Kings 240/5 (20 overs)	Chennai won by 33 runs Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali Umpires: Mark Benson and Suresh Shastri Man of the Match: Michael Hussey
	James Hopes 71 (33) Muttiah Muralitharan 1/33 (4 overs)	(Scorecard)	Michael Hussey 116* (54) Irfan Pathan 2/47 (4 overs)

Royal Challengers Vs Knight Riders

18 April 2008
	Bangalore Royal Challengers 82 all out (15.1 overs)	vs	Kolkata Knight Riders 222/3 (20 overs)	Kolkata won by 140 runs M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore Umpires: Asad Rauf and Rudi Koertzen Man of the Match: Brendon McCullum
	Praveen Kumar 18* (15) Ajit Agarkar 3/25 (4 overs)	(Scorecard)	Brendon McCullum 158* (73) Zaheer Khan 1/38 (4 overs)

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