Dalmiya’s mission: Recover Rs 3.5cr IPL booty !

Kolkata, August 20 INSIDE STORY: How Snehasish Ganguly and the Prasun Mukherjee-led administration bungled and landed CAB in a spot after refusing to accept the national cricket Board’s promised amount of Rs 3.5 crore as IPL expenses reimbursement
Just weeks after sweeping the CAB elections, the Jagmohan Dalmiya faction is already reeling under the weight of the financial liability left behind by the Prasun Mukherjee camp.
It’s been quite some time now since Shah Rukh Khan’s IPL carnival last summer, but the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is yet to get reimbursed by the Indian cricket Board for the expenses incurred in organising the Twenty20 tournament’s Kolkata leg matches — which comes to a whopping sum of Rs 3.5 crore!

Shorter form of Twenty20 in IPL soon

PUNE: If you thought the Indian Premier League (IPL) marked a revolution in world cricket, it may get even bigger in the future featuring a format even shorter than Twenty20 cricket. This view was expressed by former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja at a sports conclave organised by the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management at the Symbiosis Vishwabhavan on Monday. Speaking at a panel discussion on 'IPL Demystified', Jadeja remarked, "Don't be surprised if you see a even shorter version of Twenty20 cricket in the IPL in the future. We have had an era of each format of cricket, such as test matches, one-day and now Twenty20. The transformation has taken place and in the future, we might just have an even shorter version of Twenty20 on the lines of what is known as the Hong Kong Sixes."

ICL vs IPL cricket rivalry finally reaches USA!

Former Pakistan test player Faisal Iqbal could face disciplinary action by the Pakistan Cricket Board for appearing in a tournament in USA featuring players from the rebel Indian Cricket League. Faisal's case is expected to be discussed today by the International Cricket Committee. This latest news comes on the heels of recent reports that VVS Laxman and Piyush Chawla were told by BCCI not to play for Nottinghamshire and Hampshire respectively, since those county teams featured ICL players. Faisal Iqbal played alongside ICL players Imran Farhat and Imran Nazir in the Pakistan All-Star team at the T20 invitational tournament in May. The All-Star team captained by his uncle Javed Miandad, failed to progress to the finals in that event. However, Faisal Iqbal had a decent tournament scoring 46 not out against the Canadians and 21 in another match against a team captained by Mohammad Azharuddin. According to media reports, Faisal, who has played 21 Tests and 18 one-dayers for Pakistan, could face either a penalty or a ban. Faisal, who is not centrally contracted, was quoted as saying, "West Indian player Shaun Findley as well as seven or eight other cricketers from Canada" were part of the private tournament held in Florida.

NDTV Correspondent

When it comes to sports, India is a totally one-dimensional nation. And even in the one sport India is obsessed with, cricket, it gets hammered, time and again.One billion people and one gold medal to show for it in the 2008 Olympics. It’s high time sport sponsorship was widened to include a multitude of disciplines, rather than being concentrated merely on cricket which in any case abjectly fails to deliver.There are no qualms about paying to a foreign celebrity for a TV show or in finding millions for overseas cricket stars in the IPL while all non-cricketing Indian sportsmen suffer and half the country starves.Should we give up cricket and reform sports strategy? Should we take measures so that India does not remain the laughing stock of the sporting world?