The IPL Buzz

Cheerleaders may have added a dash of glitz to the Indian Premier League but Shahid Afridi sees them as a distraction. "The girls in skimpy dresses should be removed from the ground as this is distracting the batsman," he told The News, a Pakistan daily. "Cricket itself is an entertainment. It does not require such cheerleaders to entertain."

From games on field to the ones online - IPL is taking cricket places. The Kolkata Knight Riders have signed on Zapak Digital Entertainment to develop online games for the franchise's official website. Zapak will develop flash-based games on the team as well as individual players. Rohit Sharma, the chief operating officer for Zapak, said the idea was to create a community feature on the portal. "So we will not only provide games for the Knight Riders but also run contests and other content about the players and the game," he told Business Standard.

The website already offers two games and is expected to launch four to five more in the next two weeks. In all 10 games have been planned.

Aircel, the telecom service provider and the team sponsor of the Chennai Super Kings, unveiled a specially designed trophy for the ‘Aircel Man of the Match’ award in the forthcoming IPL matches to be played in Chennai. The Aircel ‘Man of The Match’ trophy, made of solid aluminium and adorned by gold plated edges and Swarovski crystal is shaped in the waves of Aircel.

Aircel had commissioned Titan Design Studio for designing this trophy. As per designer Abhijit Bansod, “we wanted the trophy to seamlessly combine Aircel logo and depict the story of 'best of the best' and the three layers design expresses the best talent standing out amongst equally competitive players which has been captured very smartly in this design."

Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan captain, has said he has no problem in playing seven IPL games in Hyderabad despite his dispute with an Indian family based in that city, who he has threatened to sue for defamation for alleging that he married their daughter and is not granting her divorce as per Islamic laws.

An unfazed Malik said he had nothing to hide and was looking forward to play in the IPL. “If I had anything to hide or was afraid, I would not go to Hyderabad for the IPL game. If you know there are two legal notices with the Siddiqui family that I have sent them to retract their claims and apologise for trying to defame me, and they have kept quiet on the notices," Malik said. "I don't think there will be any problem in playing in Hyderabad. As it is, it is purely up to our Delhi captain Virender Sehwag if he even plays me because we already have eight overseas players in the side.”

MA Siddiqui, the father of the girl, confirmed Malik sent him a legal notice to withdraw his claims and apologise. "But I didn't respond to his notice nor will I do in future because he is trying to save his image. I am simply asking him (Malik) to legally divorce my daughter so that she can start a new life but if he persists to deny this relationship, we will soon move court for annulment of the marriage on behalf of my daughter."

John Buchanan's son, Michael, will join the Kolkata Knight Riders’s support staff in the Indian Premier League. Michael will be the strength trainer of the team and the New South Wales' coach Matthew Mott will be Buchanan’s assistant. Michael, a batting allrounder, was part of the Queensland's championship winning Ford Ranger Cup one-day team in 2007. The deal was finalised when Buchanan arrived for the team launch last month. The team and the support staff will be assembling on April 11 in Kolkata.

Three former India captains - Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri - also part of the IPL's governing council, have been assigned the task of selecting the Player of the Tournament for the inaugural edition of the league.

The chosen one will get a trophy besides Rs 10 lakh (approx US$25,000). Given the billions of dollars at stake in the league, the Rs 10 lakh prize does sound a bit down-to-earth, considering the winner of the corresponding award in the Indian Cricket League's ongoing Twenty20 tournament gets Rs 40 lakh (approx US$100,000).

Bollywood is taking over the IPL in more ways than one. On Wednesday, Bollywood director Sanjay Gupta was in Bangalore to shoot the promo reels for Bangalore Royal Challengers. Gupta first got Martin Crowe, the team's chief cricket officer, to give a 'pep talk' to "the boys" in a set designed like a dressing room inside the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Then the team coach, Venkatesh Prasad, was filmed giving the bowling attack, including Zaheer Khan, a strategy lesson. Finally, there was Crowe and Rahul Dravid, the captain, drawing 'gameplans' on a board. Crowe and Prasad got through their shots with professional ease but Dravid looked distinctly uncomfortable in front of the camera. To his consternation, he was later made to stretch out on the ground outside, strapped on to a crane camera apparatus, in full cricket gear, with the bat outstretched to simulate a run-out situation. The shoot will continue over the next two days.

What’s in a name, you ask. Plenty, seems to be the common refrain among the IPL’s franchise owners. In the last couple of days the Mumbai and Kolkata franchises have unveiled their team names, each apparently the product of much thought. On Tuesday, Shah Rukh Khan gave us the Kolkata Knight Riders. Works well for fans of David Hasselhoff – and fans of a certain age growing up in Calcutta in the 1980s, who got the chance to see the serial beamed across on Bangladesh TV. However, the name owes more to the medieval helmet on the team logo, the sort worn by knights of old. Interestingly, Shah Rukh’s own explanation was a bit strange – it was chosen “after thorough research” with the mindset of children in mind. More easily decipherable was the name of team’s mascot, Hoog Lee – neither Bruce Lee nor Brett Lee, as Shah Rukh said, but a terrible pun on the river that flows through the city.

On Saturday the Mumbai Indians were unveiled; the name apparently signifies team effort but not many got that, prompting Kaushik Roy, a top brand executive at Reliance Industries Limited, the franchise owners, to explain the rationale. “The name has been arrived at from the city, Sachin [Tendulkar] the super achiever and our success in Twenty20 cricket. All these elements project vision and a strong stature. Mumbai has a never-say-die attitude. Mumbai Indians is also about having pride in our city. At the end of the day, we wanted an endearing name to which even those abroad can relate.”

Now here’s a complicated situation that seems inspired by Indian television drama: A TV quiz show hosted by Shah Rukh Khan premieres on April 18. That’s the same day as the IPL launches, with a match between Bangalore’s Royal Challengers and Kolkata’s Knight Riders – owned by none other than Shah Rukh Khan. Given the high profile of both and Khan’s status in the Indian advertising and entertainment industry, the clash, says Business Standard, has put advertisers in a bit of a pickle – where should they park their money? Khan’s quiz show – an adaptation of the international show ‘Are you smarter than a fifth-grader’ – has telecom major Airtel as the presenting sponsor on the Star Plus channel; the IPL will be aired on the rival Sony network with Vodafone, Airtel’s leading competitor, as the presenting sponsor. The quiz show will air Friday-Sunday between 8 and 9pm, more or less primetime IPL viewing; each show is looking for associate sponsors.

Of course this is not a major issue, even accounting for the fact that the IPL’s largest fixed revenue source so far is TV ads; the Indian market is big enough for both shows. In fact a report in the Mint business daily says sponsors of the IPL telecast on Sony are signing ‘exclusivity’ deals, paying a premium to keep rivals from advertising during the telecast. The report quotes a Sony Entertainment official as confirming that Vodafone and Hyundai, one of the associate sponsors, have signed such deals; though the official does not reveal the premium involved, the paper suggests it’s in the region of US$1.7 million – that’s in addition to the normal ad-spend rates. The reason given is the relatively short nature of a Twenty20 game – 2000 seconds of ads as compared to 6000 seconds for an ODI – increasing the chances of advertising clutter. The exclusivity, a Vodafone official said, was not about blocking rivals’ airtime, but about getting adequate airtime for yourself. It appears to be an early protection against ambush marketing – made famous by the war between Coca-Cola, the official sponsor of the 1996 World Cup, and Pepsi, whose ‘Nothing official about it’ slogan made the bigger noise.