IPL Team Franchisers Announced after over 100 Million Dollar bids

Mumbai, Jan 24 (ANI): With a tag of over 100 million dollars Mumbai, Bangalare and Hyderabad today become the most expensive teams of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sponsored Indian Premier League.

The cricket body has announced the list of franchisee of owners of all eight cities.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited bagged Mumbai with the highest bid at 111.9 million dollars. Vijay Mallya’s UB group got franchise of Bangalore at 111.6 million dollars, and Deccan Chronicle got franchise of Hyderabad team at 107 million dollars.

India Cements bagged Chennai at 91million dollars, GMR group Delhi at 84 million dollars, Emerging Media got franchisee of Jaipur at 67 million dollars, Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment got Kolkata at 75.09 million dollars and Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia bagged Mohali at 76 million dollars.

Sony Entertainment Television has bagged the broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for 10 years at 1.026 billion dollars.

About IPL

The IPL is a Twenty20 competition. It was announced after the BCCI declined permission to allow BCCI-contracted players to play in the Indian Cricket League (ICL).

The league is scheduled to start in April this year and will last for 44 days, involving 59 matches. The prize money for the league will be around three million dollars.

Each team will have a pool of 16 players, of whom four will be international and four from the Under-19 level or from the catchment area where the team is based.

The governing council of IPL consists of cricket veterans Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi and Ravi Shastri, Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, Inderjit Singh Bindra and Arun Jaitley. (ANI)

Dravid and Sourav Among the Best Paid players in IPL

Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid may have been axed from the One-day team for Australia, but there is some good news for them. In the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) which starts from April 18, BCCI has decided to pay them and some other senior cricketers 10-15% more money than the highest auctioned player of the Twenty20 event.

Sources said BCCI has shortlisted five cricketers — Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh — who will be called "icon players" and will be the highest paid players in the league. They will not be auctioned if they have a city team.

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Ganguly Dravid Dropped Again from the One Day Squad

MUMBAI, January 20: Selectors on Sunday sprang a surprise by leaving out former captains Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from India's 16-member squad for the tri-series in Australia, which also involves Sri Lanka.

Though Dravid was not part of the Indian One-day team that played against Pakistan, Ganguly was a regular in the side since his comeback from the wilderness.

Explaining reasons behind ignoring Ganguly and Dravid, Shah said,

The emphasis was on fielding abilities and they wanted a young fielding side for the series. That's why you see a lot of youngsters in the side.

A Board source said the selectors had an eye on the future and hence they decided to invest in youth, rather than sticking with the seniors.

India squad: MS Dhoni (Captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh (Vice Captain), Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, S Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar.

Standbye: Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan and Munaf Patel.

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