World Sports

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has slapped a penalty notice of approximately Rs 100 crore against IPL team Rajasthan Royals for allegedly violating forex laws in its business operations. The agency, which issued the penalty notice after a two years of investigations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), has sent out three separate notices to the IPL franchise totalling to Rs 98.5 crore plus some other similar notices earlier, sources said. While a Rs 50 crore penalty has been slapped on Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Limited (JIPL) and its directors, owners of Rajasthan Royals, Rs 34 crore notice for evasion of forex duties has been issued against EM Sporting Holding, Mauritius and its directors. A fresh notice of Rs 14.5 crore has been issued against Ms ND Investments, United Kingdom and its directors. All the three parties can appeal against this penalty order in the appellate authority of FEMA. The order requires the IPL team to pay up in 45 days. The ED has been investi...

IPL Awards Jury Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram, INC (Indian News Channels), Lalu Prasad Yadav, Brinda Karat, Shobhaa De, Income Tax Department. 2010 IPL Award Winners Most Promising Player: Lalit Modi for making too many promises he couldn't keep. Best IPL Debutante: Shashi Tharoor who scored heavily without playing a match. Most Powerful Hitter: Sharad Pawar, as former BCCI boss he has final say on IPL's future. Best Catch: Deepika Padukone, by Royal Challengers and Siddharta Mallya in particular. Best Stumping: Lalit Modi by Shashi Tharoor. Most Male Fan Following: Cheerleaders. Most Female Fan Following: Lalit Modi (being chased for VIP passes). Worst Match: Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar. Best Match: Nita Ambani and Sachin Tendulkar. Costliest Dropped Catch: Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia. Costliest Match: Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar. Best Commentator: Mandira Bedi (when she wasn't speaking). Worst Comment...

‘Mr Lalit Modi has had a trail of failed ventures and defaults till four years back but has a lifestyle now that includes a private jet, a luxury yacht and a fleet of Mercedes S class and BMW cars all acquired in the last three years.’ Thus opens a highly confidential and explosive report by the income-tax department that has been in the possession of the government for six months now but formed the basis of any action only on Thursday evening after a raging controversy over secret ownerships and sweetheart deals in the Indian Premier League, or IPL, stalled both houses of Parliament. Highly-placed sources in the I-T department and the Congress party told ET that Mr Modi has been on the government radar for quite sometime. The alleged opaqueness with which he conducted the multi-billion dollar cricket tournament and the manner in which he took on home minister P Chidambaram in 2009 seem to have resulted in a detailed enquiry into his activities by the I-T department. The report,...

THE FIRST IPL IN DEV BHUMI WILL BE PLAYED ON APRIL 16. THANKS TO HIMACHAL PRADESH CRICKET ASSOCIATION. FOR GIVING US SUCH A WONDERFULL PLACE TO PLAY CRICKET.

Mongoose Bat There is a new cricket bat doing the rounds that is supposed to revolutionise the game. It is called the Mongoose. THE MONGOOSE MMI3 CRICKET BAT is a cricket bat specifically designed for Twenty 20 cricket and is the first major redesign for over 200 years. The design is unusual in that the blade is 33% shorter than a conventional bat and the handle is 43% longer. The manufacturer claims that this provides 20% more power and 15% more bat speed and gives the batsman an advantage. This kind of a bat is especially useful and lighter than the traditional cricket bat. Its blade is 33 per cent shorter than a conventional bat and the handle is 43 per cent longer. The decreased length of the blade helps to reduce the bat's weight while the long handle allows optimum reach to the batsman. The lightness of the bat helps in increasing the bat speed and allows the batsmen to hit the ball harder while batting. The change in the length of the blade does not affect the performance...

Indian Premier League would generate a revenue of $1 billion this season, thanks to huge fan following across the globe, attracting a large number of advertisers, its Commissioner Lalit Modi [ Images ] said on Wednesday. "The tournament is still on and we have not reached the final number. Yes, it will be more than $1 billion (about Rs 4,700 crore) this season. Last season we did $450 million. "Thereafter, we would double every year," Modi told PTI and asserted that as long as the fans keep coming to IPL, the league's brand value would increase and hence the revenue. Revenue for Sony, the official broadcaster, alone would be about Rs 700-800 crore (Rs 7-8 billion), he said, brushing aside the criticism that the advertising rates for the IPL's third season were very high. "There may be some advertisers who feel that way but there are lot many others who are willing to join us," he said pointing out that the huge success of the tournament in terms ...

Members of the IPL team Mumbai Indians celebrated their win over the Delhi Daredevils in style on Tuesday night. The swankiest of cars lined up as players including Harbhajan Singh, Sanath Jayasuriya, AB DeVillairs, Ashish Nehra, David Warner and Tillakaratne Dilshan headed to a happening nightspot in the Capital to party the night away, says a media report. Meanwhile, the Delhi team players were seen enjoying a fashion show by designers Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, and later rocked the dance floor. Further in the night, they too joined the Mumbai team players at their party. Bhajji was seen having a good time as he hit the dance floor with friends. Industrialist and Mumbai Indians owner Mukesh Ambani's twins, son Akash and daughter Isha, 18 made a rare public appearance at the post match party with their mother Nita Ambani.

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...

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...

The 2009 Indian Premier League will now take place in South Africa. Security concerns in India forced organisers to seek an alternative host, with England a possible destination. But IPL boss Lalit Modi opted for South Africa following talks with Cricket South Africa (CSA), ultimately because of the favourable weather conditions. The tournament, which will feature 59 matches across six venues, will start a week later than planned, running from 18 April to 24 May. The opening match will be played in Cape Town, while Johannesburg will stage the final, with Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London also venues for matches. "We are very happy to confirm that South Africa will host the 2009 Indian Premier League tournament," said Modi. "The South African public loves Twenty20 cricket and CSA successfully hosted the inaugural ICC World Twenty20. Both these factors weighed heavily in South Africa's favour." CSA chief executive Gerald Majola expressed his delight...

IPL 2009 will kick off at the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town on April 18 while the final will be held at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on May 24 according to the new schedule. The semi-finals meanwhile are to be held on May 22 and 23 in Pretoria and Johannesburg respectively. In a double header on the first day, last year's winners Rajasthan Royals will take on the Bangalore Royal Challengers, Bangalore, while the Mumbai Indians would clash with the first edition's runners-up Chennai Super Kings at Cape Town. In all, the 59 matches will be held in eight cities: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria, East London, Kimberly, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth. Kingsmead in Durban, which has a large number of South Asians, has been allotted the lion's share of 16 matches while the Centurion Park in Pretoria will host 12 ties. The Wanderers in Johannesburg and Newlands in Cape Town will hold eight matches each, with the latter playing host to four of these on the first two days ...