3 Weeks and Counting

The countdown continues for the start of what may be the most anticipated cricket tournament of all time. In Australia, it may seem like the calm before the storm, without much news from the league in recent weeks, but in India it is a complete different story.

As mentioned in the previous post, the players have been selected, and the next step for many of the teams is proving just as popular. Many of the teams have already had their official launches, including team names, jerseys etc. Possibly the most anticipated launch however is yet to come, and that is of the team songs. Shah Rukh Khan, owner of the Koklata franchise has created tremendous excitement around his teams song, which is yet even to be launched!

There has been a lot of talk that as a result of the IPL, international cricket will suffer. It seems as though the IPL takes priority over international cricket at the moment. With several international series' scheduled or planned during the period over which the IPL is to be played, individual players and teams appear to be more and more attracted to the glamour of the IPL. The New Zealand Board and the West Indian Board are the most in danger of losing their star players, as neither board is able to meet the monetary value placed on their big name players.
The Sri Lankan Board has asked the Pakistan Board that the one-day series between the two nations does not clash with the dates of the IPL.

There are still three weeks until the first game between Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders and Vijay Mallya's Royal Challengers of Bangalore, which means there is plenty of excitement to come...

With just under a month to go before the competition begins, the whole world is on edge. The players have been auctioned, coaches have been selected, and the schedule has been confirmed. The build up to the competition has been incredible, due mostly to the big names and bigger money on offer. So here are the big names in each of the teams and how much money they attracted:

Bangalore Royal Challengers: Rahul Dravid (icon), Anil Kumble (Ind) $526,000, Jacques Kallis (SAf) $981,000, Zaheer Khan (Ind) $491,000, Mark Boucher (SAf) $491,000, Cameron White (Aus) $546,000

Chennai SuperKings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind) $1.65 million, Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) $656,000, Matthew Hayden (Aus) $409,000, Jacob Oram (NZ) $736,000, Parthiv Patel (Ind) $355,000, Albie Morkel (SAf) $737,000, Joginder Sharma (Ind) $246,000

Delhi DareDevils: Virender Sehwag (icon), Daniel Vettori (NZ) $681,000, Stephen Fleming (NZ) $382,000, Shoaib Malik (Pak) $545,000, Mohammad Asif (Pak) $709,000, Dinesh Karthik (Ind) $573,000, AB de Villiers (SAf) $328,000, Farveez Maharoof (SL) $246,000, Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL) $273,000

Hyderabad: Andrew Symonds (Aus) $1.47 million, Adam Gilchrist (Aus) $765,000, Herschelle Gibbs (SAf) $627,000, Shahid Afridi (Pak) $736,000,

Jaipur: Shane Warne (Aus) $492,000, Graeme Smith (SAf) $518,000, Younis Khan (Pak) $245,000, Kamran Akmal (Pak) $164,000, Yusuf Pathan (Ind) $519,000, Scott Styris (NZ) $191,000

Kolkata: Sourav Ganguly (icon), Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) $464,000, Ricky Ponting (Aus) $436,000, Brendon McCullum (NZ) $763,000, Chris Gayle (WI) $872,000, Ajit Agarkar (Ind) $382,000

Mohali: Yuvraj Singh (icon), Mahela Jayawardene (SL) $519,000, Kumar Sangakkara (SL) $764,000, Brett Lee (Aus) $982,000, Shantha Sreesanth (Ind) $681,000, Irfan Pathan (Ind) $1.01 million

Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar (icon), Sanath Jayasuriya (SL) $1.064 million, Harbhajan Singh (Ind) $927,000, Shaun Pollock (SAf) $601,000

Source: Sydney Morning Herald - http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/

First Post

Okay, here it is. The much anticipated first post for the MKTG2032 blog. The post that should have been up about 2 weeks ago but wasn't, mostly because I was unsure of how to write a blog post. Especially one that virtually nobody would be reading except myself.

Choosing a blog topic that I was going to stick with for the entire semester was a scary task. It had to be something that I knew I was interested in and was going to stay interested in for the next 12(?) weeks; something that I was going to be willing and able to write about and share my opinions with.. well basically myself and my lecturer. So after many sleepless nights I finally decided on a topic which I think was the first idea that came into my head when I heard about the proposed assessment.

Basically the blog, once it gets up and running will be about the Indian Premier League. It's going to be updated with recent news, results and fixtures and pretty much anything else to do with the IPL.

That's it. First post down, and it was easier than I thought. All I need is a cool phrase to finish off each post with. Ideas?

Links Post

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