Jan. 5: The much awaited IPL-4 auction is on in Bengaluru this weekend (Jan. 8 and 9). The Board of Control for Cricket in India denied that there has been any move to postpone the auction that will define the future careers and net worth of about 350 cricketers around the world.
There are said to be differences of opinion between the managing council and the 10 franchises, of whom two are new to the mix — Pune and Kochi. But none of the differences over the number of matches, etc, will affect the scheduled auction.
The auction is an event so looked forward to that Multi Screen Media, which will telecast the auction live on SET Max, is selling ad slots for `50,000 per 10 seconds.
With Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab being cleared the Twenty20 league in April-May will be a 10-team event. As per the decisions taken by the IPL Governing Council, the forthcoming season will have 70 league matches plus four play-off matches with each team having the same number of 14 matches (seven home and seven away) as in the previous editions.
The teams would be divided into two groups of five each. Each team would play the other four teams in its group twice — home and away; four of the five teams in the other group once — home or away; one of the five teams in the other group twice — home and away. The groups will be decided by a draw.
Oz not in demand
It seems Australians are hardly on the radars of the IPL teams, while Englishmen seem to be the flavour of the season. England’s Ashes heroes are presently enjoying huge demand along with legends Brian Lara, Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee and Chris Gayle ahead of the auction.
Meanwhile, a division bench of the Bombay High Court on Wednesday recused itself from the hearing of appeal filed by BCCI against a single judge’s order staying the proceedings of Disciplinary Committee (DC) which is probing allegations against Lalit Modi. “Not before me,” said Chief Justice Mohit Shah of the division bench, when appeal filed by the BCCI came up for hearing.