IPL-5 to initiate from April 4 next year

The fifth edition of the greatly popular Indian Premier League (IPL) will begin on April 4 next year and finish off on May 27, the BCCI announced on Monday.

The competition will feature 74 matches, over a period of 54 days.

"We are happy to confirm the opening and closing dates of IPL 2012, ten months in go forward. The match-schedule will be announced soon. We have no doubt that the fifth season of IPL will be as, if not more, exciting and thrilling than the previous ones," IPL Chairman Chirayu Amin said in a statement.

Chennai Super Kings had won the fourth edition after thrashing Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final.

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Hussey not reluctant to Big Bash rule changes

Michael Hussey has given a vigilant thumbs-up to some of the planned new rules for next season's Big Bash League. The eight-team competition might comprise features such as a super-over in which the batting team has its runs double, and the opportunity that spectators could keep balls hit into the crowd.

Cricket Australia asked fans to voice their opinion on the ideas via an online survey last week, seven months before the event is expected to kick off. Hussey has just arrived back in Perth after playing a key role in the IPL final victory for Chennai Super Kings, and he said the concept of the super-over "sounds all right".

"Who calls which over it is? The captain? I'd like it if I was batting, I'd call the super over as soon as I got out there," Hussey said. "I haven't reflection about it too much but the concept sounds all right, particularly if there was a Chris Gayle at the crease. He had a couple of overs in the IPL where he went for 27 and 34 runs off overs. It could approximately be game over if he had one of those overs."

Hussey said the idea of fans being able to keep balls hit into the crowd had some merit. However, he said it was important the batsman was not deprived for having cleared the fence.

"It depends how green the wicket is," he said. "If it gets to the 15th over and the wicket is still green, I don't want a new ball coming out, that's for sure. But I think it's a good idea, a bit like baseball, maybe a souvenir for a kid out there. They are going to need a lot of back-up balls of the same over range. I don't think it's the worst idea."

"It won't be of the same magnitude because of the quantity of money they spend on their tournament compare with what we could use on ours," Hussey said. "But I think in terms of the excellence of cricket we can definitely compete, attract some overseas players.

"I guess we are a little limited in that we can't draw all countries because when they play nationally clashes with our summer. But we can attract some real quality international players and we know that our first class system and our core players are very, very good."

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IPL: A glorious mix of spice and steel

After recording a drop in percentage of television viewers for the better part of the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League, the TRP rating for impressive finish between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore was more compare to the rating of last year's final.

According to aMap, a TV viewership measurement agency, the IPL--IV final between CSK and RCB scored a rating of 5.8, better than 5.6 which were rating for last year's final. The top clash in Chennai was also the uppermost rated match this season.

"It's a jump of 1.23 percent on the standard ratings of all matches of IPL--IV which is 2.6. With Net Reach of 19.12 percent it is a jump of 36 percent more than the standard Net Reach which is 14 per cent," a let go by aMap said.

"With 55 minutes of time spent per watcher in the finale, it is 40 percent higher than the average time spent of 33 minutes per viewer in IPL--IV. With 30 per cent market share in the ending, it's a jump of 52 per cent over the average market share of 19 per cent," it stated.

In this edition, 10 teams played 74 games over 50 days and CSK retain the title by thrashing Bangalore by 58 runs in the final.

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IPL Final Preview: Chennai vs Bangalore

Chennai are living up to their team name with an undefeated home run in IPL and it would Bangalore take quite an effort to breach their fortress in the finale today

Teams:

Chennai Super Kings (From): MS Dhoni(w/c), Srikkanth Anirudha, Ravichandran Ashwin, Subramaniam Badrinath, George Bailey, Doug Bollinger, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Ben Hilfenhaus, Michael Hussey, Shadab Jakati, Joginder Sharma, Suraj Randiv, Nuwan Kulasekara, Vijaykumar Yo Mahesh, Albie Morkel, Abhinav Mukund, Suresh Raina, Wriddhiman Saha, Tim Southee, Scott Styris, Sudeep Tyagi, Ganapathi Vignesh, Murali Vijay, Kuthethurshri Vasudevadas

Royal Challengers Bangalore (From): Daniel Vettori(c), Mayank Agarwal, Sreenath Aravind, Arun Karthik, BN Bharath, Raju Bhatkal, AB de Villiers(w), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Nuwan Pradeep, Muralidharen Gautam, Mohammad Kaif, Abrar Kazi, Zaheer Khan, Virat Kohli, Charl Langeveldt, Abhimanyu Mithun, Dirk Nannes, Ryan Ninan, Asad Pathan, Luke Pomersbach, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rilee Rossouw, Saurabh Tiwary, Johan van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar, Chris Gayle, Syed Mohammad Jamaluddin

Head to Head
Played :	10
Chennai :	5 Won
Bangalore :	5 Won

Best bowling in an innings
Chennai:	4/32	Albie Morkel
Bangalore:	4/40	Vinay Kumar

Highest individual innings
Chennai:	83*	Michael Hussey
Bangalore:	75*	Chris Gayle

Leading wicket-takers
Chennai:	13 in 10 matches	Albie Morkel
Bangalore:	10 in 6 matches	Vinay Kumar

Leading run-getters
Chennai:	266 in 9 matches	Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Bangalore:	289 in 10 matches	Virat Kohli

Highest Partnerships
Chennai:	106 (1st wkt.)	Parthiv Patel & Matthew Hayden	at Port Elizabeth on 20.4.2009
Bangalore:	89 (2nd wkt.)	Wasim Jaffer & Ross Taylor	at Banalore on 28.4.2008

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Bangalore come to an ending on top of table

Royal Challengers Bangalore 129 for 2 (Gayle 75*) strike Chennai Super Kings 128 for 8 (Dhoni 70*, Vettori 2-15) by eight wickets

Chris Gayle indulges himself after his bowlers controlled Chennai Super Kings to a below-par 128 to ensure Royal Challengers Bangalore will completed top of the points table. The result also protected their berth in this year's Champions League.

Chennai were always opposite inevitable beat once their top order crumbles six over into the game. Tottering at 22 for 4, MS Dhoni consolidate at first before looting quick runs in the end, but 128 wasn't leaving to test Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Particularly with Gayle unleash hell.

Gayle left his blot on the chase and it was violent. A six flew over third man; another vanished over cow corner, a third, off Suresh Raina, landed in the upper tier of the long-on stands and a fierce directly drive rammed into Albie Morkel's shin. A limp Morkel constant bowling after getting some action but Gayle punctually dispatched a short delivery over the deep midwicket boundary. But while Gayle delighted the home mass, it was the bowlers who won the game for Bangalore.

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South Africans at the IPL appear to get back in the groove

After their unsatisfactory show in the World Cup, South African players are look at the Indian Premier League, starting on Friday, to get ready for the next year's ICC World Twenty 20 in Sri Lanka.

As many as 22 South African players are part of the IPL, kicking off in Chennai with clash between reign champions Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders.

"This takes place in Sri Lanka in a year's time and most of the contender for squad places will have the perfect chance to start preparing at the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which starts on Friday," the release said.

Twenty of the 22 players in the IPL were either buying during January auctions or retain by their original franchise while Ryan McLaren of the Chevrolet Knights and David Miller of the Nashua Dolphins were late plunder by the Kings XI Punjab.

Colombo, April 7 (IANS) Ace Sri Lankan cricketer Tillakaratne Dilshan has given 'full praise to India' for winning the World Cup in Mumbai.

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IPL - IV 2011 Sahara Pune Warriors Team Squad

Yuvraj Singh (c)	Eklavya Dwivedi	Ganesh Gaikwad	Dheeraj Jadhav	Kamran Khan
Harshad Khadiwale	Nathan McCullum	Mitchell Marsh	Monish Mishra	Ashish Nehra
Manish Pandey	Rahul Sharma	Sachin Rana	Jerome Taylor	Robin Uthappa
Imtiyaz Ahmed	Callum Ferguson	Harpreet Singh	Abhishek Jhunjhunwala	Murali Kartik
Bhuvneshwar Kumar	Mithun Manhas	Angelo Mathews	Shrikant Mundhe	Tim Paine (wk)
Wayne Parnell	Jesse Ryder	Graeme Smith	Alfonso Thomas	Shrikant Wagh

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IPL - IV 2011Kolkata Knight Riders Team Squad

Gautam Gambhir (c)	Lakshmipathy Balaji	Manvinder Bisla	Brad Haddin (wk)	Jacques Kallis
Eoin Morgan	James Pattinson	Shami Ahmed	Laxmi Shukla	Manoj Tiwary
Sarabjit Ladda	Rajat Bhatia	Shreevats Goswami	Iqbal Abdulla	Brett Lee
Yusuf Pathan	Pradeep Sangwan	Shakib Al Hasan	Ryan ten Doeschate	Jaidev Unadkat

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IPL - IV 2011 Royal Challengers Bangalore Team Squad

Daniel Vettori (c)	Sreenath Aravind	BN Bharath	AB de Villiers	Nuwan Pradeep
Mohammad Kaif	Zaheer Khan	Charl Langeveldt	Dirk Nannes	Asad Pathan
Cheteshwar Pujara	Saurabh Tiwary	Jonathan Vandiar	Mayank Agarwal	Arun Karthik
Raju Bhatkal	Tillakaratne Dilshan	Muralidharen Gautam	Abrar Kazi	Virat Kohli
Abhimanyu Mithun	Ryan Ninan	Luke Pomersbach	Rilee Rossouw	Johan van der Wath

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IPL - IV 2011 Rajasthan Royals Team Squad

Shane Warne (c)	Swapnil Asnodkar	Johan Botha	Ankeet Chavan	Aditya Dole
Rahul Dravid	Faiz Fazal	Sumit Narwal	Pankaj Singh	Ajinkya Rahane
Dinesh Salunkhe	Shaun Tait	Siddharth Trivedi	Dishant Harendra Yagnik	Amit Singh
Stuart Binny	Aakash Chopra	Deepak Chahar	Aakash Chopra	Nayan Doshi
Samad Fallah	Ashok Menaria	Jacob Oram	Amit Paunikar	Abhishek Raut
Pinal Shah	Ross Taylor	Shane Watson

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IPL - IV 2011 Mumbai Indians Team Squad

Sachin Tendulkar (c)	Aiden Blizzard	Dilhara Fernando	Harbhajan Singh	Davy Jacobs
Dhawal Kulkarni	Ali Murtaza	Kieron Pollard	Rajagopal Sathish	Tirumalasetti Suman
Andrew Symonds	Santosh Yadav	Abu Nechim	Yuzvendra Chahal	James Franklin
Moises Henriques	Sarul Kanwar	Lasith Malinga	Munaf Patel	Ambati Rayudu
Rohit Sharma	Pawan Suyal	Aditya Tare (wk)	Suryakumar Yadav

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