The IPL Buzz

All the speculation surrounding Greg Chappell’s role as a coach in the IPL can perhaps now be formally ended: the former India coach has been roped in by Emerging Media, the owners of the IPL’s Jaipur franchise, to help out with the second edition of their reality show Cricket Star Twenty20.

He will be joined by Ian Frazer, the Indian team's biomechanist during Chappell's tenure, in overseeing nearly 10,000 applicants shortlisted from all over India at eight centres - cities also home to IPL teams - and select 24 to train in the Cricket Star Academy in Jaipur. The 24 chosen will be nurtured for the Twenty20 format, and the prize on offer for the winner is a contract with the Rajasthan Royals next season.

After the players, it's time for match officials to get ready for the IPL. The Indian board has suggested a list of 35 umpires that Srinivas Venkataraghavan, the BCCI's director of umpiring, pruned to 20. It will be further cut down to 16.

"The six Indian umpires likely to be seen in on-field action in the IPL are AM Saheba, SL Shastri, GA Pratapkumar, K Hariharan, AV Jayaprakash and I Sivaram," an umpire, who has been shortlisted, told Cricinfo. The first three are currently on the ICC's international panel of umpires, while the other three were part of the panel previously. The rest will officiate as third and fourth umpires.

The 35 umpires are : SK Tarapore, K Hariharan, AV Jayprakash, SN Bandekar, SD Ranade, AY Gokhale, CR Mohite, R Radhakrishanan, Sudhir Asnani, MSS Ranawat, Ravi Subramaniam, I Sivaram, VN Kulkarni, Sanjeev Rao, HS Sekhon, KG Laxminarayanan, Suhas Phadkar, SK Sharma, P Bhanuprakash, PS Godbole, MS Mahal, K Murali, RY Deshmukh, S Dendapani, A Bhattacharjee, S Laxmanan, Balwant Sharma, Sanjeev Dua, SM Raju, MG Mandale, Rajiv Risodkar, Anil Chaudhary, VD Nerurkar, Nandan, NRS Prabhu, RM Deshpande and MS Pathak.

The big auction may be over but the franchises are busy filling the holes in their squads. Some are confirmed signings - Delhi have drafted in Yo Mahesh, Shikhar Dhawan, Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia and Mayank Tehlan. The under-19 stars Virat Kohli, Tanmay Srivastava and Pradeep Sangwan are expected to be recruited soon.

Bangalore have enlisted the services of Sunil Joshi, Balachandra Akhil, R Vinay Kumar, Bharath Chipli, J Arun Kumar, KP Appanna, Devraj Patil. Manish Pandey, part of the under-19 squad, is also expected to join soon.

The IPL has been a lightning-conductor for controversy and bitter dispute but Adam Gilchrist believes it has a peacemaking role to play. The club structure includes players from different countries in the same team and Gilchrist feels that could ease tensions between players who are currently at loggerheads. “That [the IPL] is going to be an opportunity for players around the world to get to meet, know and understand opposition cultures and customs,’ Gilchrist told the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney. “I think that's going to be a very positive off-shoot of the IPL. Any world XI team I've ever played in there's always been a great camaraderie in the rooms.''

There’s ample scope for that, as the Telegraph noted; in a quirk of fate, or a marketing man’s dream, the Australian captain, Ricky Ponting, will join Ishant Sharma, the teenage Indian bowler who has been his chief tormentor this summer, in playing for the Kolkata team. Over in Chennai, the Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, will pad up alongside Matthew Hayden, whose run-ins with his players have made the headlines of late. So the “summer of discontent’, as the paper calls it, may give way to a season of détente. Now that may give the IPL’s detractors something to smile about!

Will Greg Chappell be reunited with his alter ego, Rahul Dravid? A report in the Kolkata-based Telegraph says Chappell is being wooed by the Royal Challengers of Bangalore. Chappell and Dravid were master and commander of the Indian team, working closely to oversee a phenomenal streak in ODIs and Tests before things went pear-shaped and coach and captain quit within months of each other. Chappell is back in India, heading the Rajasthan Cricket Association’s academy in Jaipur and the initial buzz was that he would coach the Jaipur team. That job has gone to Shane Warne, who will also captain the side, but the Telegraph says Chappell may come over to Bangalore, where he will be greeted by other familiar faces - Anil Kumble, Wasim Jaffer and Zaheer Khan. Nor will he be a stranger to the city – this is where he was based during his tenure as India coach.

Players from every Test-playing nation barring England, whose season overlaps with the IPL. And, strangely, Bangladesh. You’d have thought at least a couple of them would come in handy in the big-hitting format, and perhaps pull in the crowds in Kolkata. Well, that may yet happen: The Delhi Daredevils have been in talks with Mohammad Ashraful, the Bangladesh captain, and could sign him up soon. "The talks are on," TA Sekhar, part of the Delhi management, told Cricinfo. "It has not been finalised yet." There’s also a bit of red tape to be untangled - the approval of the Indian and Bangladesh boards is pending – but it’s not likely to pose a huge problem for Ashraful who, if the Bangladesher Khela website is to be believed, turned down an offer of approximately US$1.5 million from the Indian Cricket League.

Meanwhile, Kolkata may yet get a star from opar Bangla (across the border). Mohammad Rafique, the left-arm spinner who has announced his retirement, says he has got feelers from Kolkata – and it may be an offer he can’t refuse. "Shah Rukh Khan [who owns the Kolkata team] called and asked me to play for his team. I was just awestruck by the call from my favourite hero,” Rafique was quoted in the Khaleej Times. "I told him I would be available after the South African series. Sourav Ganguly’s brother and the team’s agent have been keeping in touch with me. We will have final talks after the series.”

Balu Nayar, the man who helped shape IPL, will not be there to see it through its opening season. Nayar was the managing director of IMG India, the sports management company that was involved with the concept, design and monetisation of IPL. He is now starting a private equity fund on his own with the backing of a global investment major. Nayar is being replaced by Tim Wright, who has been roped in by IMG to oversee the inaugural tournament starting April 18. "An attractive entrepreneurial opportunity came up, and I felt that the time was right to move on," said Nayar.

In another IPL-related move, TA Sekhar, former India bowler, national selector, and the head coach at the MRF Pace Academy, is set to join GMR, the Delhi franchise, as vice-president (sports administration) from March 1. Sekhar has been MRF's hands-on head coach for the last 20 years and will remain associated with the Chennai-based academy as consultant.

The BCCI has stepped in to prevent the IPL franchises from signing India Under-19 players who are currently in Kuala Lumpur for the World Cup. Good move, say many franchise representatives, because it will help the junior cricketers focus on what they went there for. But what next, they ask.

“Will it be a free-for-all after the last ball of the U-19 World Cup is bowled?” asks a representative who had signed up two India U-19 players before the BCCI moved in to declare those contracts "null and void". "All we want," says the representative, "is clarity on the situation. We want the IPL organisers to come out with a clear-cut policy on recruiting U-19 cricketers. Otherwise, it will be chaos as usual.”

The IPL is creating ripples in areas many would least expect it to. The Economic Times reports that Indian insurance companies are now in a twist as franchises have begun to approach them for insuring players for astronomical amounts. And that's because the players’ contracts with franchises stipulate that the latter have to get an insurance cover of up to seven times the fee paid. In Mahendra Dhoni’s case, the insurance cover could go up to $ 10.5 million. The insurance firms in India are in unfamiliar territory when it comes to determining injuries to sportspersons, and are reportedly scanning similar models in the UK to decide how much is too much.

The IPL doesn't seem to have won Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, too many brownie points with his political rivals in India. Dubbing the auctioning of cricketers by the BCCI-promoted Indian Premier League as ''a gambling game of industrialists'', Bal Thackeray, Pawar’s friend and hardline party Shiv Sena’s chief, has called for a fullstop. North India-based JD (U) president Sharad Yadav lashed out at the league too: "It was a day of national shame when cricketers were put on auction. It is a vulgar display of wealth and shameless demonstration of money power."

The Marxists in Bengal haven't been too impressed either: Gurudas Dasgupta, veteran communist leader, demanded that the government ban that form of cricket and even investigate the source of funds for venture. It seems that Pawar, the union agricultural minister, has plenty on his hands.