The Board of Control for Cricket in India announced the unanimous decision after an emergency meeting Sunday. The Royals, led by Australian great Shane Warne and winners of the inaugural tournament in 2008, and Kings have been at the center of corruption allegations involving the league’s former commissioner Lalit Modi.

The BCCI suspended Modi earlier this year and set up a committee in July to investigate bribery allegations in the 2008 awarding of the bids for franchises in the lucrative Twenty20 league.

But BCCI president Shashank Manohar said the elimination of the Jaipur-based Royals and Kings XI Punjab, which has Australian paceman Brett Lee and Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman Kumar Sangakkara under contract, had nothing to do with Modi.

“The decision to terminate the contract of Punjab and Rajasthan franchises were taken purely based on legal opinion we received and the breaches committed by these franchises,” he told reporters after the board announced its unanimous decision.

Those breaches, he said, involved unsanctioned changes in shareholding patterns, or differences between the names of the bidders and those who eventually entered the agreements.

Modi has denied any wrongdoing in the bidding process, and says his running of the highly successful IPL was completely transparent.

The BCCI issued a notice to Kochi, asking that it resolve internal disputes over the ownership shares within 10 days and incorporate.

Dozens of international cricket stars are contracted to the Indian Premier League. There was no immediate indication if the clubs would be replaced or what would happen to the players contracted to the Royals and Kings. The IPL had been expected to expand from eight to 10 clubs in 2011, its fourth season.

But the next season is already in doubt, with Rajasthan considering a legal challenge to the decision.

Raj Kundra, one of the co-owners of the Rajasthan club, told Press Trust of India: “I don’t see IPL 4 happening if the BCCI treats other teams like this.”

“The termination of the contract by BCCI is shocking. We are seriously thinking of a legal action. We need to see a copy of the termination notice and study it,” Kundra said.

In a stream of posts on Twitter, Modi urged the clubs to take control of the IPL and criticized the president of the BCCI for taking “a path of vengeance” that will damage the game.

“The Game is bigger than the organisation. The Owners should get together and Run the League, ” he tweeted. “IPL should not be destroyed.”

Modi accused the BCCI of having “total disregard for franchisees” and had “lost the ability to administer sensibly.”

“The status of all teams is the same. They were all approved. There is no ambiguity as far as that is concerned. The action it totally illegal,” he tweeted. The BCCI is “hell bent on destroying something that we as Indians are proud of _ The IPL. So as to satisfy there personal Agendas.”

Warne, who woke up to the news in England and was returning to Australia on Sunday, asked “What now for the youngsters”?

Warne also used the microblogging site to criticize the BCCI’s decision.

“The royals gave young unknown Indian players a chance,” he wrote. “3 seasons ago royals won the first ever ipl, underdogs come good what a story, it helped give credibility to the competition !!! Now look.”

“Such sad news for us and our loyal fans, shattering to all.”

Rajasthan and Kings XI Punjab were two of the original eight clubs in the tournament which revitalized cricket globally and sparked a range of other Twenty20 events around the world. The game is popular because it can produce a result in three hours, making it much shorter than the standard 50-over one-day internationals or the five-day test matches.

The bidding for the franchises attracted high-profile business owners and Bollywood celebrities in cricket mad India.

Rajasthan Royals was owned by Emerging Media and acquired for $67 million.

Indian actress Priety Zinta is one of four owners of the Kings XI Punjab. The group paid $76 million for the Mohali-based team.

Source: Yahoo Cricket

Manohar said the former cricketers on the governing council – Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi and Ravi Shastri – would formulate a plan for the 2011 IPL tournament after consultations with the players, coaches and franchises.

“In the last 15 days, there were lot of allegations and counter allegations made through media, as a result of which, the board looked into the allegations levelled and took a decision to issue a show cause notice to Lalit Modi, and pending inquiry, decided to suspend him,” Manohar said at a press conference following the meeting in Mumbai. “The board will hold, after receiving a reply from Mr. Modi, an inquiry if necessary. If the reply or Mr Modi convinces the members, the proceedings will be dropped …

“Shetty has been asked to look into the the records because many of the documents are missing. Every day the income-tax department is asking for records and we don’t have them in our custody.” Manohar said it was necessary to suspend Modi in order to hold a “free and fair enquiry”. “Suspension is not a punishment – he [Modi] is kept away from the functioning of the board to ensure free and fair enquiry,” he said.

Modi’s temporary successor, Amin, is a highly successful Vadodara-based industrialist, whose Alembic pharmaceuticals company lends its name to one of the city’s three first-class cricket grounds. He has been on the BCCI board for the past few years and has served on its marketing committee.

The IPL governing council, minus its suspended chairman, met at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai to discuss the issue of Modi, who was sent a charge sheet after the tournament’s final, and the possibility of an IPL without him.

Absent from the meeting were Modi and Farooq Abdullah, the president of the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association. Those present included Manohar, vice-president Arun Jaitley, secretary N Srinivasan, media and finance committee chairman Rajiv Shukla and IPL vice-chairman Niranjan Shah.

The meeting started at 10 am, just a few hours after the BCCI sent Modi a show-cause notice, and a charge-sheet specifying the allegations, that capped two weeks of raging controversy over financial wrong-doings in IPL. Modi was asked by the BCCI to reply to the show-cause notice within 15 days.

Source: Cricinfo

IPL commissioner Lalit Modi said that Sahara Adventure Sports Group made an identical $370 million bid for three cities, Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Pune.

“They made the highest bid for all three cities and were asked to chose one of those cities. So Pune will be the home ground of their team,” Modi told reporters.

Rendezvous Sports World Limited made the second highest bid and their offer of $333.33 million was enough to land the Kochi franchise, Modi said.

“In all, five groups qualified for the bid and I hope they make good business,” Modi said.

He also made it clear that there were no plans to have a second IPL abroad.

“I’m always misquoted by the media. This is Indian Premier League and there are no plans to have a second IPL abroad.

“We also have no plans to expand further immediately. In fact I don’t foresee an expansion in many many years to come but then you never know,” he added.

Apart from the two successful bidders, other groups which took part in the bidding included Adani Groups and VC Digital Solution (Videocon).

Source: Times of India

“The preparations are in full swing and there are no hiccups. We all are ready to go. We have planned a very good opening night as well as opening ceremony with a spectacular laser and fireworks show,” Modi said at a media conference to announce IPL’s latest tie-up with Karbonn Mobiles.

Modi said the boycott by the TV news channels is continuing though they had accepted a new set of proposals two nights ago.

“Nantional Broadcasters’ Association’s is a strange case. The IPL Governing Council and their representatives had a meeting two nights ago and we had agreed to allow certain amount of flexibility in their programming and amount of video footage that can be shown,” the IPL chief said.

But Modi explained that there was a change of heart on the broadcasters’ end within 24 hours and last night a few of them came to ask for more concessions which, he said, cannot be granted.

“They agreed then but last night came back to say they needed more concessions which the Governing Council cannot agree. The boycott continues though I would like them to cover the event but not on the new terms,” he said.

Modi said the bone of contention was post-match programmes with IPL footage rights of which were with official broadcasters Sony only.

But Modi was not too worried about IPL’s stand-off with NBA and said he expected the TRP ratings of the IPL action to get boosted.

“People can see IPL action on Sony and YouTube (with whom the League has struck a deal to show complete ‘live’ action with a five-minute delay for India),” he said.

Modi said the cricket fans in India were eager to see action inside the stadium after missing it last year when the tournament had to be staged in South Africa because of security concerns as it was clashing with the general elections.

“People are waiting for IPL to start. We are going to stage it with lot of innovations. IPL will take a new avatar,” he declared.

Modi also said that the central revenue pool will be doubled as compared to last year with so many new deals having been struck by the IPL.

Source: Times of India

The same advice has been given to the Australian hockey team for the World Cup starting Feb 28.

India’s right-wing Shiv Sena party had threatened to prevent the Australian players from playing in Mumbai and Nagpur, both IPL venues, in retaliation for the attacks on Indians Down Under.

The chief of security for the IPL, Bob Nicholls, was quoted as saying in The Age: ‘The security situation in India is not what we would like it to be, there are concerns, the threat level does remain high.’

‘There are concerns generally outside of the Shiv Sena thing. Shiv Sena is obviously a particular area of concern for the Aussies, but from our perspective, we look at the team as a whole.

‘And what I can say is that the level of protection we are providing for the general threat is greater than if we were implementing security strategy purely for the Shiv Sena threat, therefore we believe the players will be safe.

‘At the moment there doesn’t seem to be any acts of violence happening against Australians in India.

‘The times that we would be most concerned about is when they are out and about on their own, we will be giving them a list of dos and don’ts.

‘It is pretty straightforward, the greater risk is if people are going out on their own rather than in a team environment, and not to go out advertising that they are Aussies, wearing Aussie shirts.

‘The same advice has been given to the Australian hockey team (for the World Cup).’

Security experts have warned of a possible terrorist attack during the IPL and the level of threat has been described as similar to that around the time of the Mumbai terror attack in 2008.

Twenty-one Australian players are listed to play in next month’s IPL, including Shane Watson, Cameron White, David Hussey, David Warner, Shaun Marsh, Ryan Harris, Dirk Nannes and Shaun Tait.

Nicholls’ company, Nicholls Steyn and Associates, is in charge of player security for the tournament. It has previously arranged security for cricket’s World Cup and Champions Trophy – and will have a ”representative” with each franchise.

‘If those representatives are not comfortable with the security arrangements in place at the destination where players are travelling, such as grounds, then they will order the players to remain in the hotels until those security issues are rectified,’ Nicholls said.

‘The plan we put in place for the Champions League in India in October, this plan will be very similar to what we did there. That worked very well, so we’re using very much a similar template.’

Prominent among the players who were part of the unofficial ICL are Shane Bond, who recently retired from Test cricket, Damien Martyn, Chris Cairns, Saqlain Mushtaq and Justin Kemp.

The Pakistanis – the current world Twenty20 champions – include Mohammed Aamer and Umar Akmal, and the list also includes the exciting West Indian Kieron Pollard.

Merely registering, however, does not guarantee the player will be included in the auction list. The IPL will send the list of 97 names to the franchises who will then select those players they would like included in the auction. The selected players will be informed of their inclusion by January 5.

The number of overseas players a franchise may have on its roster is capped at ten and at present it is unclear how many slots are available. In 2009, over 100 players registered for the auction out of which 50 went under the hammer to fill 17 available overseas slots. The IPL said it expected the number of places to be substantially lower this time.

The list sets a “preliminary expected availability” date against each player’s name and, intriguingly, those from Australia and South Africa have been marked as free from the conclusion of their domestic competitions – the Sheffield Shield, in the case of Australian players, and the Standard Bank Pro20 series for South Africans. This suggests that the league has shifted from its earlier stated position, that players would have to put the IPL above their domestic tournaments and be available for the entire season.

That decision, taken in November, said defaulting players would face penalties including termination of player contracts and a ban on future participation, although Lalit Modi, the league’s chairman, told Cricinfo that this would only happen in a worst-case scenario.

Registered players

Pakistan: Mohammed Aamer, Shahid Afridi, Shahzad Ahmed, Saeed Ajmal, Umar Akmal, Fawad Alam, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt, Imran Farhat, Mohammad Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Faisal Iqbal, Asim Kamal, Danish Kaneria, Mohammad Khalil, Abdur Rauf, Khalid Latif, Azhar Mahmood, Shoaib Malik, Khurram Manzoor, Saqlain Mushtaq, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Imran Nazir, Abdul Razzaq, Mohammad Sami.

Sri Lanka: Malinga Bandara, Indika de Saram, Chinthaka Jayasinghe, Thilina Kandamby, Chamara Kapugedera, Nuwan Kulasekera, Suranga Lakmal, Jehan Mubarak, Thisara Perera, Dammika Prasad, Muthumudalige Pushpakumara, Suraj Randiv, Rangana Herath, Gihan Rupasinghe, Upul Tharanga, Kaushalya Weeraratne, ChanakaWelegedara.

South Africa: Yusuf Abdulla, Nicky Boje, Zander de Bruyn, Tyron Henderson, Justin Kemp, Rory Kleinveldt, Andre Nel, Wayne Parnell, Vernon Philander, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Johan van der Wath, CJ de Villiers.

New Zealand: Shane Bond, Ian Butler, Chris Cairns, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott, Martin Guptill, Nathan McCullum, Daryl Tuffey, Lou Vincent.

West Indies: Carlton Baugh, Tino Best, Daren Ganga, Wavell Hinds, Kieron Pollard, Kemar Roach, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Lendl Simmons.

Australia: Brad Haddin, Phillip Hughes, Ashley Noffke, Jason Krejza, Ben Laughlin, Graham Manou, Damien Martyn, Clint McKay, Adam Voges.

England: Tim Bresnan, Anthony McGrath, Eoin Morgan, Monty Panesar, Adil Rashid, Jonathan Trott Usman Afzaal, James Foster.

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan, Shahriar Nafees.

Canada: Rizwan Cheema, Khurram Chohan.

Zimbabwe: Murray Goodwin, Ray Price.

Ireland: Niall O’Brien

Netherlands: Ryan ten Doeschate

Source: Cricinfo

The third season of the prestigious Twenty20 tournament will be held from March 12 to April 25 and will feature an extra match to decide the third-place finisher, according to Lalit Modi, the chairman of the IPL governing council.

Modi told reporters Tuesday that the first game between defending champions Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders will be played in the southern city of Hyderabad.

Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala were added as new venues, although Modi did not say where the final would be played.

This year’s edition was moved to South Africa because the dates of the tournament clashed with national elections and the Indian government said it would not be able to provide security.

Modi said the tournament would be expand further in 2011 by adding two more teams and increasing the number of matches to 94.

Modi also said that more than 70 former players of the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) could take part in next year’s IPL games, pending clearance by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Modi said the trading window for IPL players will be between Dec. 15 and Jan. 5, 2010 and the salary cap for each team would remain unchanged at $7 million.

The IPL and its commissioner, Lalit Modi, have come under heavy criticism from the Gauteng Cricket Board (GCB), which manages the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg, over issues surrounding the hosting of matches at the ground during the second season of the Twenty20 league in South Africa early this year.

In a strongly-worded internal document (dated June 16) that has been circulated among members of the Gauteng board, Ray Wentzel, the GCB treasurer, has accused the IPL of violating various norms, especially for the semi-finals and final on May 24, including attempts to forcibly take over all stadium operations, such as ticketing and parking systems.

The issue has ramifications beyond the IPL and beyond sundry matters such as parking spaces and ticket prices; at stake is the future of the Wanderers, one of cricket’s most famous and historic grounds. The CSA board’s members’ forum has refused to allot any international matches to the Wanderers until the GCB apologises for its allegations and submits its match hosting conditions and, as a result, Wanderers has been stripped of a Test, an ODI and a Twenty20 game it was due to host during England’s tour later this year. This ban will not affect the Champions Trophy in September as it is an ICC event involving separate agreements but the tournament schedule released on Monday has only three matches at the Wanderers – which won’t host the final either.

Barry Skjoldhammer, the GCB chairman, said the document is “only a draft” and not the final report and hence cannot be treated as an “accepted official document”. However, he said it had been circulated among members of the GCB. “We have certain reservations about the conduct of the IPL,” Skjoldhammer told Cricinfo. “But these are not so much against IPL as with Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the way in which they left us to deal with IPL on our own. We are in discussions and I am confident that the issue will be resolved.”

When contacted, Modi dismissed the GCB’s allegations as “completely baseless” and referred to the “clean stadium agreement” that the IPL had signed, which gives the league complete control of the venue, including ticketing and parking. “The IPL has enjoyed close and wonderful cooperation with CSA and officials in the seven other provinces in the country where our matches were staged,” he told Cricinfo.

Gerald Majola, the CSA chief executive, said the South African cricket board has dismissed Gauteng’s allegations against the IPL and are awaiting an apology from the GCB in this regard.

The Gauteng document, which runs to 35 pages including annexures, points to a series of disagreements between the GCB and IPL on a number of issues, ranging from parking spaces, pouring (alcohol) rights, hospitality requirements and ticket prices. “We have been exposed to multiple threats and accusations of dishonesty and lying,” it says. “The IPL’s total disregard of ethics, manners and responsible negotiations protocols reflects an arrogant disregard of their status as guests in South Africa and guests of the South African cricket community.”

The document claims that “the most serious of all issues” was “Modi’s attempts to take control of the entire Stadium operation for the Semi-Final and Final, regardless of the cost or disruption”. It thanks the Gauteng provincial government and Johannesburg City Council for “assisting in what was a potentially catastrophic situation around the parking allocations, which had the potential to spill over into major tragedy along the lines of the Ellis Park disaster… if we had not been able to deal with this threat, GCB would have had no option but to have refused to allow the Semi Final to take place.”

The document suggests, for instance, that the tussle for parking space between Gauteng and the IPL was yet to be resolved with just hours to go for the semi-final between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings at the Wanderers on May 23.

The GCB’s biggest complaint against the IPL appears to be the manner in which it claims it has been misled on the requirement of parking during the semi-final and final. The internal document reproduces detailed email exchanges between Sundar Raman, the IPL CEO, and GCB in this regard and concludes: “When their demands for a re-allocation of the parking to which they had previously agreed in writing were rejected, the IPL initially put forward patently false claims that their demands were necessary for security reasons arising from the visit to the Final of President (Jacob) Zuma.

“When these claims were refuted by GCB on the strength of information given to us by the Presidential Security Unit and by the responsible arm of the SAP, the IPL simply persisted in its demands and threatened to disrupt the operational security and efficiency of the semi-final and the final unless its demands were met.”

The document ends with what appears to be a direct, personal attack against Modi. “With specific regard to any future dealings with the IPL and Commissioner Modi, in whatever capacity, the Board should be mindful of his unacceptable personal behaviour in a variety of different ways.”

The GCB document also accuses Majola of adopting “a consistently sycophantic attitude towards the IPL’s demands and his total disregard of the rights of the provinces and their supporters”. “We have also been dismayed by the politicizing of the IPL and GCB disagreements by the President of CSA Dr Mtutuzeli Nyoka,” the document states.

Majola said the CSA’s members forum, comprising all CSA affiliates, dismissed the criticisms by GCB against the management of the 2009 IPL by CSA, the IPL and the BCCI. “They [GCB] were instructed to apologise to all these parties and as yet no apology has been forthcoming,” he told Cricinfo. “GCB has called for a dispute with CSA to be declared, and this has pushed the matter into the legal arena and will be dealt with by CSA’s management committee.”

Wentzel, the GCB treasurer, says in the document that the purpose “of this report is to give Board members an overview of our dealings with the IPL and CSA over the period leading up to and during the hosting of the IPL tournament in South Africa. Many issues have arisen in regard to which the Board will need to make policy and operational decisions for future events of this nature where cricket is played at our Stadium outside the control of existing national and international structures.”

Ajay Shankar is a deputy editor at Cricinfo

India 159 for 1 (Rohit 80, Gambhir 52*) beat Pakistan 158 for 6 (Misbah 37*, Younis 32, Ishant 1-11) by nine wickets…

India underlined their status as ICC World Twenty20 favourites with a crushing nine-wicket win over Pakistan at The Oval.

A ruthless performance with the bat allowed India to cruise to their target of 159 with 18 balls to spare.

Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir scored 80 and 52 respectively to beat Pakistan, who had been looking to avenge their 2007 final defeat against their rivals.

Pakistan had earlier looked to be in a strong position after they picked apart India’s pace attack of RP Singh and Praveen Kumar.

Misbah ul Haq (37 not out) and Yasir Arafat (25 not out) smashed 45 off 27 balls after Ahmed Shahzad (25) and Kamran Akmal (19) had set them on their way.

Younus Khan also chipped in with a quickfire 32 before being removed by Harbhajan Singh.

But India set about chasing their opponents’ total in emphatic fashion with Sharma and Gambhir giving the 23,000 sell-out crowd a masterclass in destructive strokeplay.

Yasir Arafat took particular punishment as he was dispatched for 25 off his opening three overs.

Umar Gul was also made to pay for his wayward bowling and was hit to the boundary four times before being hauled off by Younus after just two overs.

Younus changed his attack but neither of the four new bowlers, Saeed Ajmal, Sohail Tanvir, Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Aamer, could stop Sharma and Gambhir from finding the boundary and racing towards the Pakistan total.

The pair brought up the 100 off 71 balls with Sharma reaching his 50 in the 11th over off just 37 deliveries.

India were scoring at more than eight an over by the time Sharma pulled Afridi over midwicket for six to take the score to 116-0.

Aamer then got the breakthrough in the 17th over when his short ball was mis-timed by Sharma, who sent the ball high into the air before being caught brilliantly by Shahzad at mid-wicket.

Gambhir reached his 50 in the 17th over before he and MS Dhoni steered India to victory.

Many see power-hitting as the key to Twenty20 success but Indian batsman Anjum Chopra has said that technically sound batsmen will do well in the game’s shortest format.

Citing the example of this season’s IPL finalists Royal Challengers Bangalore, who were derided as a Test team last year, Chopra said: “In the women’s T20 cricket also the technically sound cricketers will be successful. I understand that women cricketers may not play powerful shots like Yusuf Pathan, but technically sound cricketers will certainly have plenty of opportunities in the format.”

She welcomed the ICC’s move to host the men’s and women’s World Twenty20s simultaneously. “This is going to be a fine opportunity for women’s cricket as the World Championship is being held side by side with the men’s tournament,” she said. “The women’s event will also get enough limelight during the event which will play as a launching pad for women’s cricket.”

Chopra, who returned to the national side last October after a 20-month absence, will be one of India’s key batsmen in the tournament. India kick off their World Twenty20 campaign on June 11, when they take on England in Taunton.

Source: Cricinfo