Move over Bollywood, the IPL might soon be coming to a multiplex near you. The Twenty20 league had invited tenders for its theatrical telecast rights for matches beginning next season until 2019. The reserve price for the bid has been set at US$ 2 million per year. Going to a theatre to watch a Twenty20 game is all very well but hearing the commentators yell “That’s a DLF maximum” and “Citi moment of success” in Dolby Digital sound could get trying very quickly.

What a difference a year can make. Last year, the Deccan Chargers finished at the bottom of the barrel at the IPL and were the league’s laughing stock; this year, the players are laughing all the way to the bank. For fashioning the mother-of-all-turnarounds and winning IPL Season 2, the team also took home an incentive bonus of just over $83,000 – and that’s on top of the $1.2 million prize money and the big, pre-recession salaries. And there’s more to come – franchise chairman V Shankar has promised the players stock options in the company when it goes public. He was delivering on a pre-tournament promise that hinged on the Chargers climbing from bottom to top. The Chargers, Shankar said, would wait for the valuation of the two new teams to be included in the IPL from 2011 before going public. The recession is likely to be done by then, so the wait will surely be worthwhile.

	Salman Khan could become the fifth Bollywood celebrity to have a stake in the IPL © AFP

Move over Shahrukh Khan – Salman Khan is all set to throw his hat (and considerable muscle) into the cricket ring. The Bollywood star, known more in recent times for controversy than critical acclaim, is reported to have shown an interest in bidding for a franchise when the next lot goes up for auction in 2011. He met Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman and commissioner, on Wednesday after several months of discussions and was given the low-down on buying a team. First up, the price tag: $200-300 million per franchise. If he can manage that, and beat off other bidders, Salman could become Bollywood's fifth IPL stakeholder after Shahrukh, Preity Zinta, Juhi Chawla and Shilpa Shetty. If that's a bit too glam-heavy for you, it isn't for Modi. "It [having a film star on board] does add to the spark of the event," he said.

It appears the IPL is to Indian movie stars what commentary is to retired cricketers. They all want a piece of it. The latest to turn franchise-hopefuls are two filmmakers from southern India who are keen to nurture local talent and have approached the Kerala Cricket Association to take their proposal to the BCCI.

Priyadarsan, a noted movie director, and Mohanlal, a superstar in regional films in south India, sent some young players for selection trials to the Kolkata Knight Riders and though none of their players were picked, Priyadarsan said the exposure to international players certainly helped.

“We’re trying to nurture local talent, as the most successful IPL players this year have been little known guys like Manish Pandey, Pragyan Ojha, and Kamran Khan,” Mohanlal told the Times of India. “There are a lot of youngsters in the small towns of Kerala and Tamil Nadu waiting to get a break. They have the talent, but lack exposure and world-class training facilities.”

Priyadarsan said the state association will approach the BCCI with their proposal. However the IPL does not plan to add teams to the existing eight next year. So the Malayali Marauders/Kerala Crusaders will have to make do with talent-spotting for now.

Matthew Hayden striding down the pitch to smash bowlers during the IPL is an ominous sight from afar and one can empathise with Daryl Harper for wanting to wear a helmet while officiating in Twenty20 games.

“In one of the games Sanath’s [Jayasuriya] shot hit me so hard that I was feeling breathless for a while. And Hayden’s hits have brushed my ears a few times as well,” Harper told Times of India. "I was talking about this to some of the other umpires and they were also of the same opinion. Given the pace with which some of the players hit those shots, it's becoming really dangerous for us. I guess it's just a matter of time before you see us using those [baseball helmets].”

And what do the umpires do during the strategy breaks? "Well, that's a sock for us,” Harper says. “We can discuss where we would dine."

Shane Warne walks on water but is famously partial to beer – even in the middle of an IPL game. Leading his Rajasthan Royals back on to the field after a strategic time-out against Bangalore at Centurion on Thursday, Warne was walking along the boundary when he spotted a spectator holding a glass of beer. He reached out, the beer was proffered, a quick swig ensued, a few drops were spilled and one spectator was left with a glass he probably will keep forever. It was all over in a few seconds and, though captured live by the TV cameras, was studiously ignored by the commentators. Warne, typically unfazed by the potential for controversy, carried on from where he’d been interrupted by the break: leading Rajasthan to yet another win and, by the end of the night, to second spot in the table.

Which IPL team opens with the ‘Rock at the top’ and the ‘Cannon’? If you guessed Rajasthan Royals you’d be right, but bonus points if you said ‘Desert Roses’ for those are the nick names Shane Warne (aka ‘King’) has given to Graeme Smith, Swapnil Asnodkar and his team.

The rest of the players also have fitting aliases. Rajasthan’s hard-hitting match-winner Yusuf Pathan goes by the name of ‘Lethal weapon’, while the ‘Terminator’ (although he hasn’t terminated much as yet) is Dimitri Mascarenhas, the Times of India reported. Abhishek Raut is the ‘Young gun’, wicketkeeper Mahesh Rawat is ‘Reliability, while the team’s ‘Rockstar’ is allrounder Ravindra Jadeja.

There are a couple of natural disasters as well, ‘Tornado’ and ‘Cyclone’ (Kamran Khan and Shane Harwood respectively) which would fit right into an X-Men movie. ‘Home run’ and ‘Big fury’ refer to Tyron Henderson and Munaf Patel while Darren Berry is the team’s ‘General’.

Rajasthan also have a ‘Secret weapon’ which they deployed in the last game against Deccan Chargers. It fired as well with Lee Carseldine contributing important runs towards the victory.

The sight of a sibling celebrating your misfortune can be heartbreaking, but what Jacques Kallis had to endure was much worse. Adding to the frustration of being caught off a beautifully executed cover-drive during Bangalore Royal Challengers' loss to Chennai Super Kings, Kallis had to bear the unsettling sight of his sister dancing as he trudged back to his team’s dugout.

"I hit one beautifully but it went straight to cover. A couple of feet either side of him and it was four, so I was feeling pretty fed up," Kallis said. "Then, as I started walking off, I looked around at the scoreboard and there was my sister Janine dancing to celebrate my wicket!"

However, it was all taken in good spirit, as Janine was signed up as a cheerleader for Chennai and just doing what she was expected to. Though Kallis still felt, that she could have made a bit of an exception in his case. "The Bangalore girls actually come from America so there was no chance of Janine being with us. I don't mind really...except she really did seem to be doing her job very well when I was out. She didn't have to look so pleased...!"

The mystery of the "fake IPL player" deepens. Kolkata Knight Riders coach Matthew Mott confirmed the anonymous, eponymous blog has been a talking point within the team, although stopped well short of describing the matter as a distraction.

The blogger, whose online following has expanded with each of his 25 entries, insists his work has created a maelstrom within the Knight Riders squad, culminating in a team-wide witch-hunt and a confiscation of laptops. But while admitting to curiosity as to whether the blogger is, as claimed, a member of the team, Mott said the postings were being viewed light-heartedly by the Knight Riders.

"It's a bit of a joke in the squad," Mott told Cricinfo. "There is something going on, but I have only read a bit of one (blog entry) on someone else's laptop, so I can't say whether it's close to the mark or just someone making good guesses. It has been raised but at this stage we're treating it with humour. I'd still be interested to know who it is, though."

Reports of the IPL’s dwindling popularity in Season 2 are grossly untrue - just ask the prisoners in Kolkata’s Alipore Central Jail, who have gone on a hunger strike in protest against not being allowed to watch the tournament. The protest by the 500 prisoners began after guards rejected their demands, on the grounds that the matches are being broadcast on a private channel - security concerns allow only state-run television to be shown in Indian jails. In the gloom there is good news, though: The prisoners can count themselves lucky they missed Kolkata Knight Riders’ abysmal performance on Sunday. And as for the IPL suits, they now know whom to tap if the ratings fall.

The IPL is clearly making its presence felt in South Africa, sometimes in unconventional ways, as a local businessman found out to his utter surprise. When Stephen Blewett checked into his hotel room in Port Elizabeth, he found a stash of R450,000 in the locker. It emerged that the room had been previously used by the Kings XI Punjab team, which had camped in the city to train. The money was meant to cover day-to-day expenses. "It is not common for us to carry that amount of money but we have a lot of costs and the money was not yet distributed to the players," the team's liaison officer, Arvinder Singh, told the Times. For a country that normally attracts negative headlines over crime rates, this was a refreshing change indeed.

The best thing that happened to the Rajasthan Royals, the inaugural IPL champions, might have occurred by chance. They never intended to buy Shane Warne at the auction but ended up with him because he was the first player on sale - or so say the authors of an upcoming book 'IPL - an inside story'.

The book has what it says is an eye-witness account of the first auction by the CEO of a franchise. "Warne's was the first name that came up as the 78 players' names were picked up. But no one was willing to pick him up at the reserve price. The auction was headed for disaster within the first few minutes.

"Since [Lalit] Modi has some interest in the Jaipur team, he made eye contact with [Manoj] Badale and Co. and nudged them to start bidding. Jaipur raised the placard, hoping other teams would jump into the fray. But no other team bid for Warne. Jaipur, it seemed, was saddled with Warne." Less than four months later Jaipur had the last laugh, and the others were left looking foolish, as Warne reinvented himself with spectacular success.

The celebrity quotient during the opening ceremony of the inaugural IPL may have been provided by biggies from Bollywood but the tournament's shift to South Africa could lend it an international flavour this time around.

Reports suggest Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman - who are working on the Human Factor, a film on how Nelson Mandela used the 1995 rugby World Cup win to help heal post-apartheid race relations - are among the headliners at this year’s ceremony. If true, one of the organisers’ tasks will be to stop them from doing a Groucho Marx (asking “When does the game itself begin?” while watching the match). Pop star George Michael and alternative rock band Snow Patrol are other names being bandied about - though curiously no mention has been made of cricket's biggest rockstar fans, Mick Jagger and his fellow Rolling Stones. Ah well, you can't always get what you want...

It’s only natural for millions of Indians to feel upset about moving the IPL out of India, and it seemed only a matter of time before someone took action. Rather surprisingly, the All India Karate Federation was so irked by the move that they have gone to the extent of filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Rajasthan High Court. The petition, filed by its president Rameshwar Nirvan, said it was a national shame to shift the tournament and that it only exposes the incompetence of the government in providing security. It added that the general elections shouldn’t disrupt all other activities in the country. By taking the legal route, the karate men have shown they can use non-violent methods to fight for a cause.

As a captain Sourav Ganguly was never shy of expressing himself. Now he claims to be fighting for the rights of others to express themselves – namely a group of 24 young female cheerleaders. Ganguly is the judge of ‘Knights and Angels’, a reality show that will whittle down the competition to six lucky ladies who will cheer the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL.

Asked if cheerleaders distracted players, Ganguly rejected the claim adamantly. When one of the journalists checked if his new role wouldn’t embarrass his daughter back home in Kolkata, Ganguly hit back, asking, “What is so bad with dancing?” Even if it isn’t a career choice, Ganguly said the girls were just doing something they liked and he even compared them to gymnasts. “Would you call gymnastics a bad sport then?”

Ganguly said the girls need to be knowledgeable on cricket and understand the match situations better so that they can pump up the energy levels of the crowd and support the team. He did much of that during his captaincy years, though without having to shake a leg.

The war between the cola majors has found a new turf, the IPL. After Pepsi ended its ten-year association with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) owner and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, Coca Cola has swooped in to sign a two-year deal to associate its popular Sprite brand with the team. It is learnt that Coca Cola will be involved in sponsorship of merchandise and serve beverages at Knight Rider stadia.

Pepsi, who shifted its focus to younger consumers, had earlier dropped Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly (the KKR captain) as brand ambassadors. Shah Rukh’s contract which expired in 2008 was also not renewed, though he may now be signed up by Coca Cola. “I am now perhaps too old for Pepsi,’’ he told the Times of India

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is Pepsi’s new face but in a twist that could add fizz to the cola wars, Ishant Sharma, who will spearhead the KKR pace attack, features in Pepsi’s mini-campaigns. Did someone mention ambush marketing?

When in India, go to the movies. And when you get there, don’t watch one. Put on your face paint, throw on that snazzy jersey, and root for your favourite cricketers.

Perhaps borrowing from the USA where, in 2003, certain cinema chains telecast Boston Red Sox baseball games as the team surged toward the World Series, the IPL has decided to try something new and exciting.

Following an increase in requests from cinema owners in India, the IPL has decided to float tenders to sell these rights for the 2009 season. "We have decided to issue tenders for selling these rights for one year or so," said IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi. "We will decide on continuing this after seeing how it goes on."

Come to think of it, a Twenty20 game lasts about three hours, which is the average length of a Hindi feature. In India the concept of a ten-minute interval is still there, which is almost the equivalent of an innings break. And India loves movies and cricket. Who'd a thunk it?

Cinemas aren’t just about movies anymore. Seems like they are more like entertainment destinations.
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An email plopped into our inboxes this afternoon from the Indian Premier League, excitedly announcing no less than 114 players for the forthcoming auction. But which names have been included?

Well, alongside the expected ones – Michael Clarke, Andrew Flintoff, JP Duminy and the like – were the lesser-known Kevin Peterson, that nobody from Australia, Doug Bowler, and the South African Neil McKanzee.

England’s lot included the ageless Dominic Cork and, err, Tyron Henderson. Woops.