The 'thick' friendship between cricketer Harbhajan Singh and actress Shilpi Sharma (of Jo Bole So Nihaal fame) is the talk of the town. News is that this budding friendship has already reached the next level, which for obvious reasons, the duo won't accept.

The news making the rounds is that Harbhajan has been continuously sending SMSs to Shilpi to come to South Africa and see him in action on the field. Shilpi maintains that he's 'just a friend' and not someone special.
"Yes, I don't deny the fact that we've been friends for almost a year and he wants me to come to South Africa to cheer for him and his team. Is there anything wrong with that?" she says.

Remind her that just a year ago, Bhajji was linked with another actress, Geeta Basra and she retorts, "What? I've never heard of such rumours." Ask her when she is planning to go to cheer for Bhajji, she replies, "I was to go but due to some prior commitments, I couldn't make it.

But if his team makes it to the final four, I definitely intend to go to cheer for him." "I'll be going to cheer for him with a bunch of friends.
not alone," she adds before signing off.

Lalit Modi


Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has said there is a possibility that the

tactical time-out in the middle of each team's innings could be changed from

one interval of seven and a half minutes to two breaks of two and a half

minutes each for the semi-finals and final of the second season of the IPL.


"It's not frozen yet but we are looking at two aspects. There will be two two-

and-a-half-minutes break per innings, so the break in all during an innings will

be of five minutes," Modi told NDTV. "The first two-and-a-half-minute break

will be just after the Powerplay [6 overs] and the second to be taken by the

fielding side at any time.


"It happens in every sport, there is a strategy break and everything. But 7.5

minutes may look like a bit longer, so we are seeing how we can reduce it

down to five minutes" However, he said that the idea was yet to be ratified

by the tournament's technical committee.


The tactical time-out has played a part in shifting the momentum in the

Twenty20 games and has usually benefited the fielding team with the

batting side losing wickets in the overs immediately after the break. It was

criticised by Sachin Tendulkar, the Mumbai Indians captain who felt that the

breaks were "hampering the momentum of a team", Kings XI Punjab coach

Tom Moody and VB Chandrasekhar, Chennai Super Kings' head of cricket

operations. Other experts were also not certain of how much value it added

to the game.


Kolkata Knight Riders coach John Buchanan had called for the number of

overseas players in a XI to be increased from four but Modi said it was not

going to happen. "This is the Indian Premier League," he told the Indian

Express. "The focus is on getting local talent and I have shoved away the

idea of increasing the number of foreigners."

Lalit Modi


The Indian Premier League (IPL) on
Tuesday launched a controversial SMS

game asking fans to predict the scores of a live match. The winners will get

cash awards.


According to the rules of the game, the entrant will have to send the runs

that will be scored off every ball of the next over (for example 3 2 4 2 6 6,

like in a lottery ticket) and the people guessing six, five or four numbers in

the sequence correctly will get a percentage of the kitty generated by the

total number of people playing at that time. The minimum prize money for

every over is Rs 10,000 and will increase after that, depending on the entries

received, at Rs 5 per SMS.


While the early reaction from experts is that this is a form of online cricket

betting, which is illegal in India, IPL commissioner Lalit Modi denied it. "It's

only about texting. Anyway, there is a lot of texting going back and forth,

discussing the game. This is very similar to that, discussing the game

amongst friends," he said.


"The person in the stadium has no idea what the people are predicting. It's

very difficult to fix the outcome of an over. I think, maybe one in a million.

We have checked it out and looked at it very carefully. If that was to

happen, we would shut it out absolutely, without doubt."


When contacted on Tuesday evening, an International Cricket Council (ICC)

media officer said that the governing body had not heard about the game,

but would anyway have no say in the matter because the ICC "has no direct

involvement in the IPL". The BCCI had, prior to the start of the tournament,

refused to pay the $1.2m fees asked by the anti-corruption unit of the ICC,

and the second edition of the IPL is not under the surveillance of the game's

governing body.


The game, 6UP, will be available only to Indian mobile subscribers starting

from Wednesday's matches.