Player Profile(#38)...Daniel Vettori (New Zealand)

Daniel Luca Vettori (born 27 January 1979, Auckland, New Zealand), but brought up in Hamilton attending Marian School and later St Paul's Collegiate School, is a cricketer who is the current captain of the New Zealand cricket team. When available he plays provincial cricket for Northern Districts, and is also an international member of Indian Premier League team the Delhi DareDevils. He is the youngest player to have represented New Zealand in Test cricket, having made his debut in 1996/1997 at the age of 18. Vettori is a slow left-arm orthodox spinner, but he is known for his flight and guile rather than prodigious turn or pinpoint accuracy.

International career:
Vettori made his test debut at Wellington for New Zealand against England on 6 February 1997. His first Test wicket was Nasser Hussain. Three weeks earlier he had made his first class debut, against the touring English side and again his maiden wicket was Hussain. His ODI debut came a month later against Sri Lanka at Christchurch on March 25th 1997.

His career was in jeopardy in 2000 with a back injury, but he recovered to play a major role in New Zealand's victory in the 2004 Tri-Series with England and the West Indies in England.

Vettori was selected in the final squad for the World XI Super Series against Australia and played in all 3 ODIs and the Super Test.

As of 10 March 2008 Vettori was ranked 1st on the ICC Player Rankings for One Day bowlers and ranked 2nd and 10th for Test and One Day all-rounders respectively.

Vettori has also played for Hamilton in the Hawke Cup.

Captaincy:
Prior to becoming captain on a permanent basis in 2007 Vettori had captained the Black Caps in ODI cricket on occasions such as when regular captain, Stephen Fleming, was unable to. As of the end of 2006 he had led New Zealand in 11 games, winning 8 of them.

He captained New Zealand at the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa. Subsequently, it was announced that Vettori would captain the Black Caps in all forms of the game, i.e. captain Twenty20, ODI and the Test teams. Initially, it he was announced to only be captain of the former two.

Vettori's captaincy has had a rocky start, losing a Test series in England first up. Vettori also attracted some criticism in the following ODI series, when following a controversial run out, he engaged in angry shouting and jumping up and down from the balcony at Lord's Cricket Ground. He then refused to shake hands with the England team after the match. Not only did this contrast with Fleming's more languid style, some felt such behaviour was hypocritical given Daniel Vettori's support for team mate Brendon McCullum the infamous running out of Muttiah Muralitharan in similar circumstances.

Batting:
Vettori has matured into a useful lower-order batsman having scored 2,000 Test runs, including two centuries (137* against Pakistan in 2003 and 127 against Zimbabwe in 2005), as well as several half-centuries. Although it took Vettori 47 Tests to score his first 1,000 runs at an average of 17.24, the second thousand took him just 22 Tests at a rate of 42.52 per innings. Vettori's average batting at number 8 is 37.11 (for Tests) and is currently the best average of all time for a player batting there. His average at number ten is 3rd best of all time in ODIs.

In December 2006, Vettori began establishing himself as more of an all-rounder, batting at number 5 for New Zealand in the one-day series against Sri Lanka.

Personal life:
Vettori confirmed plans to marry fiance Mary O'Carroll and move to Auckland sometime in the winter of 2007. He has continued playing for the Northern Districts Knights. At the Wellington cricket ground The Basin in January 2008 he was seen wearing a wedding ring, so it is assumed that they are now married.

Links to more information on Daniel Vettori:

Vettori for captain

Changing of the guard for Black Caps | BLACK CAPS | ONE SPORT | tvnz.co.nz

Vettori to marry girlfriend, move to Auckland

Cricinfo.com Profile on Daniel Vettori





*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owners of pictures and videos used.

Introducing...the Indian Premier League

The Indian Premier League (also known as the "DLF Indian Premier League" and often abbreviated as IPL), is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and chaired by the Chairman & Commisoner IPL, BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi. The first season of the Indian Premier League commenced on 18 April 2008, and ended on 1 June 2008 with the victory of the Rajasthan Royals in the final at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai.

Teams play each other two times in a round robin system, with equal number of home and away matches. The top four ranking sides will progress to the semi-finals.

The inaugural 2008 tournament started on 18 April 2008 in Bangalore and lasted for 46 days, with 59 matches scheduled, out of which 58 took place and 1 was washed out due to rain

Television rights and sponsorship:
The IPL will bring the BCCI income of US$1 billion, over a period of five to ten years, reinforcing its status as the richest board in world cricket.

All of these revenues are directed to a central pool, 40% of which will go to IPL itself, 54% to franchisees and 6% as prize money. The money will be distributed in these proportions until 2017, after which the share of IPL will be 50%, franchisees 45% and prize money 5%.

Television rights:
On 15 January 2008 it was announced that a consortium consisting of India's Sony Entertainment Television network and Singapore-based World Sport Group secured the global broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League. The record deal has a duration of ten years at a cost of US $1.026 billion. As part of the deal, the consortium will pay the BCCI US $918 million for the television broadcast rights and US $108 million for the promotion of the tournament.

20% of these proceeds would go to IPL, 8% as prize money and 72% would be distributed to the franchisees. The money would be distributed in these proportions until 2012, after which the IPL would go public and list its shares. Sony-WSG then re-sold parts of the broadcasting rights geographically to other companies.

Rules:
The official rules for the tournament are here. Some of the Team composition rules are:

Total squad strength of 16 players plus one physio and a coach.

No more than 8 foreign players in the squad and at most 4 in the playing XI.

A minimum of 4 local players must be included in each team.

No fewer than 4 players from the BCCI under-22 pool in each team.

The players accorded "icon" status are: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag . The total spending cap for a franchisee in the first player auction was US $5m. Under-22 players are to be remunerated with a minimum annual salary of US $20,000 while for others it is US $50,000. Icon players are to be paid 15% more than the highest paid player in their respective teams.

Franchises:
The winning bidders for the eight franchises were announced on 24 January 2008. While the total base price for auction was US $400 million, the auction fetched US $723.59 million. The official list of franchise owners announced and the winning bids were as follows.

Mumbai Indians
Owned by: Reliance Industries Limited (Mukesh Ambani)($111.9 million)

Royal Challengers Bangalore
Owned by: UB group (Vijay Mallya)($111.6 million)

Hyderabad Deccan Chargers
Owned by: Deccan Chronicle (T Venkatarami Reddy)($107 million)

Chennai Super Kings
Owned by: India Cements (N Srinivasan)($91 million)

Delhi Daredevils
Owned by: GMR Holdings (Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao)($84 million)

Kings XI Punjab
Owned by: Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia (Bombay Dyeing), Karan Paul (Apeejay Surendera Group) and Mohit Burman (Dabur)($76 million)

Kolkata Knight Riders
Owned by: Red Chillies Entertainment (Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla Mehta and Jai Mehta)($75.09 million)

Rajasthan Royals
Owned by: Emerging Media (A.R Jha, Lachlan Murdoch, Suresh Chellaram)($67 million)

Future Expansion:
After the success of the first season, it has been reported that four new franchises will join the IPL in 2010-11, increasing the total number of teams to 12. The new confirmed franchises will be based in Ahmedabad and Kanpur, with Anil Ambani's name associated with the ownership of the Ahmedabad franchise, and Sahara Group is touted as the possible suitors to buy the Kanpur franchise. Other cities being linked with getting a franchisee are Patna-Ranchi joined franchisee or a team from the North-East to promote the sport in the region and possibly one team from the north-western states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand. A second Mumbai or Delhi team has also been proposed for future expansion of two teams to take place in the 2012-13 season.


Expansions- 2010-11 Season( 4 new teams)-

IPL Ahmedabad

IPL Kanpur

Any two from the following-

1. A Patna-Ranchi joined franchisee 2. A team from the North-East 3. A team from the north-western states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand

The unselected team from the 3 will be considered for the next set of expansions in the 2012-13 season.

2012-13 Season( 2 new teams)-

The unselected 3rd team from above

Possibly a second franchisee from Delhi's suburbs( Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, NOIDA and Greater NOIDA) and New Delhi combined

Possibly a second franchisee from Mumbai or a new franchisee from Pune.

Cheerleaders:
The IPL has been criticised by a few politicians and feminists for bringing in foreign cheerleaders, which is seen by many to not be in the traditional spirit of the game, as well as being against some Indian sensibilities. Two cheerleaders from London were asked to leave the ground at Mohali “because of the colour of their skin” by Wizcraft International Entertainment, which handles the team Kings XI Punjab. Ellesha Newton and Sherinne Anderson, both from London and of African ancestry were allegedly barred from entering the stadium by employees of Wizcraft International Entertainment on the pretext that "people don’t like dark girls here". Both the girls also allege that an employee referred to them with the racial slur ″nigger″.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said a probe would be initiated by the IPL only if the two women officially complain to IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

BCCI and IPL officials are surprised that the two cheerleaders did not complain about the alleged racist behaviour while they were in India and spoke about it only after they returned to London.

"We have not received any complaint from any cheerleaders that they were asked to leave by the Mohali-based Kings XI Punjab franchise recently because of the colour of their skin," BCCI joint secretary M.P. Pandove said in Mohali.

See also:

England - Twenty20 Cup

India - Indian Cricket League

Pakistan - Pakistan Super League

South Africa - Standard Bank Pro 20 Series

Sri Lanka - Inter-Provincial Twenty20

Australia - KFC Twenty20 Big Bash

New Zealand - State Twenty20

West Indies - Stanford 20/20

Zimbabwe - Metropolitan Bank Twenty20

Kenya - National Elite League Twenty20

Canada - Scotiabank National T20 Championship

Indian Premier League links:

Official site for Indian Premier League

Indian Premier League at Cricinfo

*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owners of pictures and videos used.

Player Profile(#29)...Gautam Gambhir (India)

Gautam Gambhir (born 14 October 1981, in Delhi) is an Indian opening batsman. He has been a member of the Indian national cricket team since 2003 (ODIs) and 2004 (Tests). Gambhir had been a prolific run-scorer in domestic cricket with an average of over 50 but his two successive double-hundreds in 2002 (one of them against the visiting Zimbabweans) made him a strong contender for India's opening slot. He became only the fourth Indian batsman to score a double century in a tour game at home; the previous three being Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sachin Tendulkar.

Gambhir was selected in 2000 for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.

He made his ODI debut against Bangladesh in the TVS Cup in 2003. In his third match, he scored 71 and was named Man of the Match. His maiden century {103 off 97 balls) came against Sri Lanka in 2005. In 2004, he made his Test debut against Australia in the fourth and last Test match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy but did himself no favours by getting out for 3 and 1. He made amends in his second Test, however, scoring 96 against the South Africans. His maiden Test century came against Bangladesh in December 2004. Gambhir then made a number of starts in the home series against Pakistan in 2005, but was able to make only one half-century in six innings. He made 97 in Zimbabwe later that year, but failed to reach 30 against Sri Lanka at home, repeatedly struggling against Chaminda Vaas, and was subsequently dropped from the Test team. He was replaced in Tests by Wasim Jaffer, who made a double hundred and a hundred in seven Tests. He has often been criticized as not being able to convert his starts of 20 and 30 into larger scores and his string of poor scores is continually cited as evidence for this assertion.

While he has been out of the Test team, he has played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 Cricket World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past. If he does become more consistent, he could cement his place as a One Day International opener in the Indian cricket team.

Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final.

2008 started well for Gambhir. At home, he scored an unbeaten 130 in the Ranji Trophy final to help Delhi beat Uttar Pradesh by nine wickets just two days before the team for the ODI tournament in Australia was to be announced.

Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007-08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.

Gambhir scored a double century in the Kotla Test against Australia in October 2008.





*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owner of Youtube Video.