IPL 2009 South Africa a seek preview

It’s been almost a year since cricketing world entered into a new phase of cricketing era which many believed will change the way the game is played . The kind of money on offer has never been their before with new franchise based model, Player been put to auction. It came with much uncertainity and many experts questioned its survival .It brought with it what people had never seen before the mixture of glitz, glamour and cricket. It might have been a heart break for a traditionalist but against the backdrop of a cricket crazy Indian sub continent, with glamour happily intertwined with the biggest cricketing talents from across the globe, there's little which went wrong with the tournament and the much awaited tournament started when the Chinnaswamy stadium hosted the cricket match between the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Kolkata Knight Riders on 18 April, 2008.

On April 18, 2009 and after months of hype, excitement, controversy, politicisation and speculation the high-profile Indian Premier League will kick off its second edition in Cape Town, South Africa with the Mumbai Indians facing Chennai Super Kings, two heavy weights of the tournament. The first time these two teams met in the IPL 2008, the fireworks were provided by the likes of Hayden, Raina, Dhoni and Nayar. But with stars like Tendulkar (injured for most of season 1) and JP Duminy set to join the bandwagon the signs for a potential humdinger are quite obvious.

The IPL second season will a total of 263 players participating this year. Which are 73 more than the first edition? If we have a look at the revenue it’s been said that the second edition of IPL will be a even bigger hit than the first seasons but with several issues still to be resolved like logistics cost, gate pavements and profit sharing revenue models with the IPL and the franchises the revenue generation is still to be seen. The inaugural edition of the IPL was a grand success and it attracted contracted revenues in the range of Rs.8000 crore. This time around it has already attracted contract revenues to the tune of more than Rs 10,000 crore - around Rs. 2000 crore more than last year - thus clearly defying the recessionary trends across the globe. Likewise, the teams have increased their expenditure and have cast their web farther, in this year's IPL there are 80 overseas players compared to 66 in 2008 while there are 183 Indian players in place of 124 Indian players who played last year. All this would mean bigger sixes, crashing boundaries, flying middle stumps and thus more live music and more gyrating cheerleaders. All of which would definitely result in worldwide viewership in excess of 101 million viewers - the numbers who watched the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on television.

Cricket is one of the key elements of the Indian social system which binds the whole country together keep asides elements like caste, creed, culture, religion and traditional values.

This time around with terror striking at the heart of cricket the Mumbai attacks and the attack on the Sri Lankan players in Lahore, Pakistan has brought the whole survival of the game itself in doubt in the sub continent .Hence, we 100 crore Indians and more await, the cricketing world holds its breath, and wait for wonderful cricketing spectacle to begin.

Welcome Indian Premier League 2009!