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The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has said it will continue with the disciplinary action against players at the centre of the controversy surrounding pay and contractual matters. The action had been suspended during negotiations between the board and the players but those talks broke down last week.Leading players including Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan are all part of the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA), which is currently locked in a battle with the board over annual retainer contracts. The West Indies players have not signed those contracts since October 2008; WIPA has claimed that the players have played four tournaments in a row this year without the contracts while the WICB says the demands of the players are unjust.In a separate statement, indicative of the widening gulf between the two parties, WIPA also agreed that a number of proposals, including the involvement of the Caribbean Court of Justice, were no longer applicable following the breakdown in talks.The board’s statement said it decided to resume disciplinary action against all West Indies players who had committed breaches of its Code of Conduct during the England tour, Indian tour and the Bangladesh tour earlier this year, by referring these matters to its disciplinary committee.It did not itemise all of the breaches of its code but the said the players were likely to be asked to respond to well-publicised charges from the three series.Against England, the players blocked the logo of the team’s sponsor during the first one-day international in Guyana, where they also failed to attend a cocktail reception hosted by the same sponsors. The players also failed to show for the official launch of next year’s Twenty20 World Cup to be staged in the Caribbean during India’s visit.Matters were brought to a head in July this year with 13 of the leading West Indies players making themselves unavailable for the first Test against Bangladesh in St Vincent, citing pay and contract issues. The WICB was forced to field a weakened squad which resulted in Bangladesh sweeping both the Test and one-day series.Mediation efforts between the WICB and WIPA also collapsed recently, with the mediator, former Commonwealth secretary general Shridath Ramphal, claiming that one “party” had introduced a document late in the negotiations that led to their stalling.The board also came in for criticism from Bharrat Jagdeo, the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) chairman and Guyana president, alleging that the board prejudiced the efforts to broker peace from the start.However, the WICB denied the claims. “Disciplinary action against offending players had been initiated prior to the commencement of mediation and had been suspended in favor of a settlement through mediation,” the board said. “The WICB had as part of its compromise in the mediation effort offered to withdraw all disciplinary action against the players. With the failure of mediation the next step would have been the settlement of all matters through arbitration which, the WICB will be pursuing immediately.”

Andrew Flintoff is to spend the next three months in Dubai to aid his recovery from the latest operation to his right knee and make a return to England’s one-day team as their star allrounder.”It’s always easier doing rehabilitation in warm weather and that’s the main reason why we’ve decided to go to Dubai,” Flintoff told his website. “Three years ago when I was recovering from my ankle, we all went to Florida as a family and it worked really well and I see this being a similar situation.”I can’t drive for at least another six weeks, so it will difficult getting from A to B and doing my rehabilitation without relying on someone else to drive if I stayed in England. Where we are staying in Dubai, all I have to do is press the right button in the lift to get from our apartment to the gym and everything I need is on the doorstep.”Flintoff, 31, retired from Test cricket at the end of England’s Ashes-winning summer, and 24 hours after helping them regain the urn he underwent arthroscopy to his injured right knee. He admitted in a newspaper interview last week that there’s a chance he may never play again, but his main ambition remains to play in another World Cup and has targetted England’s one-day leg of their tour of Bangladesh next February as a realistic date for a comeback.His latest bout of rehabilitation suffered a minor setback this week when it was revealed that he was afflicted by deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in his right calf, though the ECB was quick to release a statement describing it as “a common complication of surgery”.

Scorecard
Twin centuries by the Sri Lanka A openers handed the hosts a much-needed win to stay afloat in the five-match series against Pakistan A. Upul Tharanga and Mahela Udawatte’s mammoth 222-run stand after Sri Lanka A chose to bat was followed up by some disciplined bowling as they sealed their maiden win via the D/L method.Both batsmen looked firmly in control and scored at a brisk rate. While Tharanga hit 12 boundaries during his 129-ball stay, Udawatte smashed seven fours and a six in his 137-ball innings. Mohammad Talha tried to restore some pride for the visitors, ending with three wickets after a few late strikes, but Sri Lanka had reached 300.Chasing 288 in 46 overs, Pakistan A were off on the wrong foot, with the Sri Lanka A seamers striking regularly to leave them struggling at 68 for 3. That allowed the introduction of Ahmed Shehzad and captain Faisal Iqbal who threatened to wrest the initiative with a 105-run stand.Shehzad, whose 95-ball stay comprised six boundaries and three sixes, was finally undone by Malinga Bandara. That opened the floodgates for the seamers, and when Faisal finally departed on 73, having stroked just three fours, Sri Lanka A had closed in on the win. Isuru Udana was the most successful bowler for the hosts with 3 for 51, while Lasith Malinga and Farveez Maharoof picked up two wickets apiece.

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has said the players who refused to join the Test squad last week, and the official ticket launch for the 2010 World Twenty20 on July 4, violated the board’s code of conduct and, in some cases, retainer contracts. In its first formal communication with the players on this issue, it has written individually to each of them citing breaches of contract and seeking a reply within ten days.The action precipitated an immediate response, with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) disputing the charge, saying the players could not breach contractual obligations because they had not entered into an agreement with the WICB. It said the board lacked the standing to issue such letters.The board claimed a breach of Rule 6 of the WICB Code of Conduct, which states: ‘Players and team officials must not at any time engage in behaviour unbecoming that could bring the game of cricket into disrepute or be harmful to the interests of cricket’.The WICB release also said those players on retainer contracts have been informed that “their action breached that contract and therefore those payments have been suspended immediately until such time as you [the players] indicate in writing to the WICB your resumption of obligations under the contract”.WICB media officer Phillip Spooner said the board had also told WIPA that the strike action breaches the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the two, and requested that the dispute be referred to immediate mediation.WIPA, on the other hand, clarified the position of its players in its own press release. “They informed the WICB that they were unavailable for the first Test against Bangladesh,” the WIPA statement read. “These players were under no contract with the WICB that imposed any terms, conditions and obligations with regard to the first Test against Bangladesh and have taken no strike action within this context.”On the “boycott” of the ticket launch, WIPA said though the players participated in the ODIs against India, “there was no contract setting out what the terms, conditions and obligations were with regard to this series and it was their understanding it was an optional event.””In the normal circumstances the players may well have attended in any event without a contract but after a three-hour meeting at which it came to their attention that a large number of long outstanding issues had still not been resolved they exercised the option not to attend,” the WIPA statement read.According to the association, a letter was subsequently sent to the president of the WICB to the effect. WIPA acknowledged receipt of a letter from the WICB and a notice of dispute which it would respond to, denying any such assertion of strike action or breaches of the MoU and the CBA , and said it would proceed to respond as mandated under the CBA.The latest move in the ongoing player contracts crisis comes on the heels of WIPA’s tongue-in-cheek ‘apology’ on Tuesday, listing the debacles of the WICB administration and management over the last few years and also slamming the board for not honouring previously-arbitrated agreements between the two entities. On Wednesday, WIPA wrote to the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), seeking their intervention on the contractual impasse.

Will we see the end of the ‘dull draw’ in a year’s time?•Getty Images

David Morgan, the ICC president, has hinted that Test cricket may be reduced to four days to protect and enrich the game’s oldest format in the face of lucrative Twenty20 leagues like the IPL. The suggestion is one of several radical changes mooted for the new Future Tours Programme, including a two-tier format and day-night Tests to attract more crowds.”Another thought that many people have, that we are examining is whether Test match cricket can be played over four days rather than five,” Morgan told the magazine. “I would be very surprised if within a year you haven’t seen some significant changes in Test match cricket.”James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, confirmed that four-day Tests had been raised in strategy discussions during recent ICC meetings in London. Sutherland said the concept was not a “developed thought”, but indicated the willingness of cricket’s leaders to modernise the game.”That was just one of a number of initiatives and innovations that were raised in strategy discussion,” Sutherland told Cricinfo. “I have heard Mark Taylor talk about four-day Tests as a concept in the past, but I’m not sure if it is something that will be taken on.”Morgan felt it wouldn’t be too difficult for players to make a mental shift from five days to four. He added that Test cricket needed many more adjustments, and that special cricket balls would have to be made to facilitate night Tests in white clothing.”We need better over-rates, better pitches that give a good balance between bat and ball and we need to consider day-night Test cricket,” Morgan said. “There is great support for it, the issue is the colour of the ball and the quality of the ball. It would be a pity if Test match cricket – day-night – had to be played with a white ball and therefore coloured clothing.”We are looking very closely at ball manufacturing design that replicates a red ball, maybe an orange ball, a ball that could still allow us to play in white clothing and still at night.”The two-tier structure was recently put forth by Dave Richardson, the ICC general manager for cricket, to divide the stronger and weaker teams and make the format more competitive. Sutherland has leant his tentative backing to the concept, although is cogniscent of the impact it could have on smaller Test nations.”Test cricket is the ultimate test of skill, fitness and mental strength, and contests between stronger and weaker teams often lack the competitive aspect of other forms of the game,” Sutherland said. “For sport to be entertaining and something that engages with the public, there needs to be uncertainty in terms of the result. We have probably seen in recent years too many matches where that hasn’t necessarily been the case.”We see merit in the idea of similar strength teams being pitted against each other, but there is obviously a flipside to that. If India, for example, is placed in the top-tier, then nations in the second tier would be at a commercial disadvantage with their ability to host them. These are all factors that will be discussed, but the most important element from our point of view is that Test cricket retains quality content and context.”The ICC has also given the go ahead for the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) from October following trials in specific series over the last year. Umpires will have greater scope to decide on bad-light interruptions and the penalities for slow over-rates have also been increased.With so much emphasis on Twenty20 and the enrichment of Test cricket, Morgan remained confident of the survival of the 50-over game in its current form, now with batting Powerplays and free-hits added to add greater intrigue. He also defended the presence of the Champions Trophy in an already crowded calendar, despite its unpopularity with many of the players.The Champions Trophy, to be played in South Africa in September, will feature only the top eight teams and is a shorter tournament compared to previous editions.”It will be played over a shorter period and we are certain it will rejuvenate the Champions Trophy brand,” he said. “The brand needed polishing, rejuvenating, it needed remodeling and this event will be a very, very exciting and successful event I’m sure. It will be the event that will give fifty overs cricket its profile back, give it a boost without a doubt.”

England captains have been two-a-penny in the past few months, but if Paul Collingwood looked a little nervous as he faced the media on the eve of his return to the role, it was not because he has taken over a sinking ship in the manner of his immediate predecessors, Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen. Quite the opposite in fact.For the first time in a long time, England have rediscovered that winning habit, and as the Ashes begin to loom, so too does the invidious nature of Collingwood’s three-week tenancy. On his watch, England’s precious momentum could conceivably be boosted by a glorious maiden triumph in a major global event. More likely, however, it stands to be dented by another ignominious failure to match the skills and chutzpah of the more established limited-overs nations.Collingwood was at the helm in South Africa two years ago, when England’s only victory in five attempts came against the underdogs of Zimbabwe. With Andrew Strauss stepping aside to let his harder-hitting colleagues take centre stage, Colly’s back in the hot seat, and to judge by these early impressions, he’s finding it hard to inject his words with the right measure of confidence.”We’ve got to be brave to win a tournament like this,” Collingwood told reporters at Lord’s. “We have to have the belief that we can win as a team, but we also have to have belief in our own ability in the middle. Twenty20 cricket is not an exact science, so you have to think on your feet in the middle. Sometimes it only takes one person, and we’ve got a lot of matchwinners, so I really do believe we can surprise a few people. I’m not going to say we are going to win it, but we have to believe we can win it.”Ever since England’s near-miss at the 1992 World Cup, their one-day cricket has struggled to cope with the national preference for the five-day version, and in this summer of all summers the disparity seems even more stark than ever – no other national captain, for instance, would have to field questions on the eve of such a prestigious competition about a star player’s fitness for a still-distant Test series – as Collingwood did of Andrew Flintoff.”Freddie is a world-class player, simple as that,” said Collingwood. “He’ll be coming back into the England side, and he’ll be welcomed back because we’ll need him 100% come the Ashes. But right now we’re concentrating on a major World Cup tournament. If we go all the way and win it, it’s certainly going to give us some major confidence, but this is a one-off. The Ashes is something we’ve been building up to for a long time now. The next three weeks shouldn’t affect the way we approach that.”It shouldn’t affect anything … but as Collingwood’s demeanour suggested, it just might. “A lot of our momentum comes from results, because when you’re winning things are very easy,” he said. “It’s [difficult] when the losses come along, and we will have losses in this kind of tournament, that’s the nature of Twenty20 cricket. But what we’ve got is a strong team ethos, and it’s not just me that has to drive that, we’ll have to filter that team ethos through to the new guys. They know what is expected of them and the England team.”For the second time in two Twenty20 tournaments, England’s clutch of new boys could make the difference between success and failure. In 2007, the selectors took a punt on the likes of Darren Maddy, Jeremy Snape, Chris Schofield and James Kirtley – men who had performed with aplomb in the domestic Twenty20 Cup, but who, to a greater or lesser degree, had been found out at the highest level. Sure enough, the experiment failed.This time, however, Collingwood has far more faith in the men at his disposal. Of the two uncapped members of the original squad, one – Graham Napier – has just returned from an educational stint with the IPL, while the other – Eoin Morgan – justified his call-up with an exceptionally inventive innings of 161 for Middlesex at Kent in the Friends Provident Trophy earlier this month. Despite the innate fatalism that tends to accompany English one-day campaigns, there are genuine reasons why the story could be different this time.”You look at Ravi Bopara at the top of the order, he’s going to be crucial for us, and Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson have developed as bowlers,” said Collingwood. “We have players who are in crucial positions who have gained a lot of international experience since 2007 and I think they’re better players now.”There are obviously concerns when you meet up as a team that the new guys will not be brought into the side as well as they could be,” he said. “This time around that isn’t a concern, because I think we have a really strong culture in the side, and the guys get on really well. The boys have got the skills and are very confident, and we just want to take that out into the middle.”Whether the brave talk translates into brave deeds, however, remains to be seen. A fear-free Dutch team, bolstered by the IPL star Dirk Nannes and Essex’s uncompromising allrounder, Ryan ten Doeschate, await in the tournament opener, and then it’s over to Pakistan, beaten finalists in 2007, and a side who are just glad to be back on the international stage after the horrors of Lahore.”Playing at home could be an added pressure but we’re not taking it like that,” said Collingwood. “We’ve got an advantage in many ways, we know what the wickets are all about here, and we’re very excited about playing in front of our own crowds. No England cricket team has won an ICC tournament before so we have a three-week period here for us as a team to hopefully put that right.”

It started with a third-ball duck and ended in a leg-side wide. Those were the events that bookended Australia’s lamentable three-day ICC World Twenty20 campaign, and symbolised the struggles encountered by Ricky Ponting’s men in comprehensive defeats to West Indies and Sri Lanka.Australia on Monday suffered the ignominy of becoming the third team after Scotland and Bangladesh to be dumped from the pool stages of the tournament, while the likes of the Netherlands and Ireland remain. Theirs was a campaign rocked by the expulsion of Andrew Symonds, blighted by indisciplined bowling (24 extras in 34.3 overs) and ultimately thwarted by the orthodoxy of their batsmen in a format that rewards power and creativity.In many ways, the result was not surprising. Ponting’s side had lost three consecutive Twenty20 matches entering the tournament, and were cast into by far the most difficult group around. But this is Australia – a team bearing the same colours, if not cast, to that which vanquished all before it in the preceding decade – and the expectation shouldered by their world-beating forebears is now a burden for a new generation to carry.Few outside its own borders will mourn Australia’s early exit. Indeed, the image of jubilant Sri Lankans dancing and singing down Bridgford Road, which runs adjacent to Trent Bridge, was no doubt replicated in bars and living rooms the world over by fans still scarred from Australia’s era of dominance. But even the most calloused of hearts felt a twinge of sympathy for Ponting at the post-match press conference, where his utter despondency and frustration was eerily similar to the demeanour he sported the last time he fronted the cameras in Nottingham – following a series-deciding Ashes defeat four years ago.”I’d like to be able to tell you I knew what was going on,” he said. “That’s five international Twenty20 games we’ve lost in a row. That’s a bit of a worrying trend for our team and our group. I couldn’t have been happier with what we’ve done leading into the tournament, everything was spot on. But when the big moments have come along we’ve just stumbled.”The group we’re in, with the West Indies and Sri Lanka, we knew that they were two very dangerous sides and if we made mistakes they’d make us pay. That’s certainly the way it’s turned out. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that we’re not through to the next stage, for the reason that I can’t really understand why. Everything was going along so nicely for us and now we find ourselves out of the tournament altogether. That’s it.”In the aftermath of Australia’s seven-wicket walloping at the hands of the West Indies on Saturday, Ponting stressed the importance of positive first overs. So when David Warner steered Angelo Mathews’ third offering of the afternoon into the sure hands of Tillakaratne Dilshan at point – the lowlight of an over in which the Australians managed a solitary run – the captain’s exasperation must have been palpable.Ponting channelled some of that frustration towards Lasith Malinga, whom he glanced and pummelled for three consecutive boundaries in the fourth over. But the red mist would eventually prove his undoing. Charging a faster, flatter delivery from Ajantha Mendis, Ponting’s anger turned to despair as the ball cannoned into his leg stump, taking with it much of the momentum he had built during his short, sharp innings of 25 from 15 deliveries.

Thereafter, the innings largely belonged to Mendis. Playing his first match against Australia in any form of the game, Sri Lanka’s modern-day Johnny Gleeson completely befuddled Michael Clarke and the brothers Hussey en route to the sparkling figures of 3 for 20 from four overs.Mendis’ strength lay in his aerial mastery, more so than his lateral movement off the pitch, as evidenced by his bowling of Ponting and trapping of Shane Watson (22 off 21) and Michael Hussey (one off five) leg-before. The orthodoxy of Hussey and Clarke (11 off 15) proved no match for the unique trajectories and bustling pace of Mendis, and created a hole from which the Australians would always struggle to emerge.Mendis’ union with Muralitharan was largely responsible for Australia’s torpid tally of 40 for 4 between the fifth and 14th overs, and created a pressurised atmosphere which Malinga and Isuru Udana would later capitalise on. Both quicks used deft changes of pace to deny the Australian batsmen any sense of rhythm, and if not for Mitchell Johnson’s rearguard 28 not out off 13 balls – in which he took 19 of the 21 runs to come from Muralitharan’s final over – Ponting’s men may have been in for another Windies-style humiliation.As it was, the Australians were restricted to a total of 159 for 9 – ten runs shy of the total the West Indians devoured on Saturday – and victory never seemed likely; particularly after Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara pounded 11 boundaries in Sri Lanka’s first 50 runs of the innings.The ten players chosen in Australia’s Twenty20 and Ashes squads will now be subjected to the galling experience of remaining in England while the World Twenty20 plays out around them. Their immediate plans involve an extended stay in Leicester, and an attempt to ensure the bitter disappointment of their three-day World Twenty20 campaign doesn’t metastasise into a problem that corrupts their Ashes campaign.”Next week I don’t think there’ll be too much freshening up,” Ponting said. “I reckon we might get flogged a bit by the coach next week. We need to talk about it and we need to address some of the issues and some of the areas where we’ve been so deficient in the last couple of games. We need to talk about that tonight and get that done because some of the guys will be out of here soon.”When the specialist Twenty20 players do leave then we do have a real focus on just cricket. There will be nothing else to think about, nothing else to talk about. That will be my job, to make sure we get over this loss pretty quickly and start focussing on the red balls and the white clothing for the next few months.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
Tillakaratne Dilshan scored his second rapid half-century in a row, this one completing a comfortable win•AFP

For a while it looked like Delhi Daredevils’ batsmen had been a tad complacent while chasing a modest target, which Bangalore Royal Challengers’ bowlers defended tenaciously, but an unbeaten half-century from Tillakaratne Dilshan completed their third consecutive win in the tournament. The six-wicket victory took Delhi level with Deccan Chargers on top of the points table, with six each.The only highlight for Bangalore, who suffered their fourth consecutive defeat, was the performance of their weak bowling attack, who kept them in the game longer than most people expected. Their top-order batsmen, despite changes to personnel and order, disappointed once again. Their overseas players failed to fire, and their fielding went to pieces just when they had a sniff at pulling off an upset win.Delhi lost their openers, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, early and Dilshan and AB de Villiers went about chasing the target of 150 calmly. They hardly attempted expansive shots, preferring instead to play the ball into gaps and run swiftly between the wickets. The spinners, Anil Kumble and KP Appanna, bowled a tight line and length and conceded few boundaries. As a result Delhi had scored only 64 for 2 after 10 overs but the equation – 86 runs off the last 10 – was manageable.Dilshan was perhaps lucky to survive a run-out appeal soon after the tactical time-out. He was short of his crease when Ross Taylor’s throw hit the stumps, but the third umpire was not convinced that Boucher had not broken the stumps with his glove before the ball found its target. de Villiers, however, fell soon after, bowled by a delivery from Appanna that turned past the bat from outside leg to hit leg stump. Dinesh Karthik started brightly, clouting a four and a six, but fell soon after, caught by Jacques Kallis at deep cover, and left Delhi at 106 for 4.At this point Bangalore had 43 runs to defend in the last four overs. That was when they needed to raise their game but their fielding let them down during the 17th over, which was bowled by Kallis. Dilshan took a single after smashing the third ball out of St George’s Park, and Mithun Manhas lofted the next towards long-on. Robin Uthappa, who’s having a nightmare of a tournament with the bat, misjudged the catch: he came in too far only for the ball to fly over his head for four. Manhas pulled the next ball to deep midwicket where Appanna mis-fielded to allow another boundary. Delhi scored 19 runs off the over, needed only 24 off the last three, which they managed with ease.Delhi’s batsmen have been their strength so far in the tournament, but today their bowlers laid the platform for victory by restricting Bangalore to 149. They were challenged by Pietersen and Taylor during an aggressive partnership, but the two spinners, Daniel Vettori and Amit Mishra, struck on either side of the strategic time-out to throw Bangalore off course.Delhi’s dominance began with the first ball of the match. Dirk Nannes produced a perfectly pitched delivery which angled across Kallis, who had replaced Jesse Ryder as opener. Kallis thought the ball could be left and shouldered arms, only to hear it clip the top of off stump. It was the fifth time in five matches that a Bangalore opener had been dismissed for a duck.Uthappa had scored 32 runs in four innings at a strike-rate of 71 before today, but Bangalore have almost no option but to play him. His innings ended on 3 when he top-edged a pull off the front foot against Ashish Nehra, when he should have been playing back.Pietersen had said at the toss that he “had to do something today”. He and Taylor made slow starts, but stepped up a gear against Nehra in the fourth over. Bangalore were 45 for 2 after the Powerplay at which point Virender Sehwag introduced spinners from both ends. Mishra was able to tie the batsmen down, but Vettori wasn’t. Taylor cut him deftly for four, and Pietersen charged and hit him over long-on to take 13 runs off his compatriot’s first over. In his second, Pietersen swept powerfully to the boundary but a moment’s rashness cost him his wicket the very next delivery. Pietersen attempted to switch-hit Vettori’s quicker ball through midwicket, but missed and was bowled, falling for 37 in the last over before the tactical time-out.Mishra dealt Bangalore a crippling blow in the first over after the break, trapping Taylor leg before with a googly. Bangalore were struggling at 78 for 4, but managed to reach 149 largely due to Boucher’s blows over the leg-side boundary in the penultimate over.

On Tuesday evening, at a press conference that turned into a double actbetween Lalit Modi and Shah Rukh Khan, the chairman and commissioner of theIPL began an answer by waxing eloquent about a ‘carnival of cricket’ and ended it by referring to the testing conditions that await Indian batsmen in South Africa. The order in which he made hispoints may have been instructive: this year, as last, the IPL is basing itsruthless business model on entertainment. Now, as then, cricket feelssuspiciously like a means to an end. Perhaps the sooner we get used to theidea, the sooner we can all move on.It may not be easy. An email that landed from the company employed to do the IPL’s public relations cheerily alerted us to the floats which were scheduled to drive around Cape Town as part of Modi’s plan to seduce the locals. They would, it said, contain players and other celebrities. No matter that the IPL has moved to another continent: Shah Rukh and Preity Zinta, interviewed by Mark Nicholas during the mid-innings break in Monday’s one-day international between South Africa and Australia in Port Elizabeth, remain irrepressibly to the fore.The mass transportation across the Indian Ocean Modi referred to has been reasonably fluent, which reflects well both on the ad hoc hosts and the drive and efficiency of Modi himself. Blockbusters are not supposed to take an unexpected twist as early as the second chapter, so the fact that a 36-day, 59-match tournament is taking place at such short notice is a miracle in itself, even if Modi’s claim that all has been ‘smooth sailing’ is stretching the self-congratulation a little.In reality there are plenty of thorny issues beneath the surface. The small matter ofthe suiteholders at Newlands, who pay good money every year to watch cricketfrom the comfort of their own personalised boxes but have now agreed (someof them, at least) to make way for the IPL’s great and good, needed hours ofEaster-holiday meetings to resolve. Castle Lager’s parent company,SABMiller, have reluctantly consented to pay for the privilege of servingbeer at the grounds which have been their own private drinking dens for years.And now we are going to have time-outs, dreaded by those who fear theAmericanisation of the sport but regarded as a no-brainer by the money menwho spy extra advertising opportunities.These, though, are the details, and the bigger picture, for the time being at least, is less finicky. Ticket sales for Cape Town’s back-to-back double-headers (expect more new terminology as the tournament progresses) have been so overwhelming that Newlands was a sell-out within a couple of hours of tickets being made available; this week an extra 5,000 seats were conjured from very nearly thin air. That probably tells us what we already knew: that South Africans love their sport and Cape Townians their cricket, even at the end of a domestic season which might have sated other nations’ appetites. But it’s impressive nonetheless: grey England, with the competing attraction of the County Championship, could not have pulled off a similarstunt.Modi has made all the right noises, of course. He was gratitude personifiedon Tuesday evening, cooing over Cape Town’s welcome and even tugging at theheart strings by claiming that the decision to relocate to South Africa wasthe ‘most difficult of my life’. Shah Rukh, meanwhile, did his bit bypointing out that it was in South Africa in late 2007 that he first fell forshort-form cricket. India pushed him in the right direction by lifting theWorld Twenty20 and even revealed that his house is full of South Africanfurniture. This is a tournament that knows it is a temporary guest, but asthe thorny issues indicate it is clearly determined to behave like the manabout town.All of which leaves us with the cricket, for it’s easy to forget that allthe celebrities, all the mutual back-slapping, all the professed affinitybetween two nations, would be nothing without a bat and a ball. Genuinequestions await. Will Shane Warne overcome a year of rustiness to rip hislegbreaks and rally the Rajasthan Royals? Will Kevin Pietersen slipeffortlessly back into the role of captain? Will Sourav Ganguly overcome hisirritation at John Buchanan’s multiple-skipper theory? Will Delhi Daredevilslive up to their billing as pre-tournament favourites?Last year the cricket provided its own answer to the hype and hyperbole. Ifit does the same again, the minor inconveniences of the build-up may even beforgotten.

Security will be of “paramount” importance during the second season of the IPL, with a centralised security force monitoring teams, official, venues and grounds, Lalit Modi, the league’s chairman, has said. Confirming two new venues – Ahmdedabad and Vishakapatnam – Modi said the IPL was close to finalising the revised itinerary and was waiting for the final nod from the states, “90%” of whom had given their approval.Modi also announced that the DY Patil Sports Academy stadium in Mumbai, which hosted the final last year, will be the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies.After last week’s Lahore terror attack, many foreign players have voiced their concerns about playing in the IPL. Modi said he understood their fears but said they had nothing to worry as he detailed the enhanced security measures worked out by the IPL this time.Unlike last year where states and individual franchises looked after security, the IPL governing council has decided to have a central security force which would enable smooth movement of the teams, officials and the television crew across various venues. “Nicholls Steyn, the agency looking after player security last year, will now work closely with state security forces from this year,” Modi said. “The whole security will be managed centrally.”Modi said the security arrangements would be similar to those after the Mumbai terror attack last November when England returned to play a Test in Chennai. “It is a very, very elaborate template. We did the exercise after the Mumbai blasts for the Chennai Test against England last year. We had a rigorous contingency plan put in place, shared by the security forces, government and the ECB. It was implemented without any hitch. We are now taking that as a base template and apply that to every city the IPL will be hosted in.”Modi said the security budget had been hiked ten-fold because “the movement of players is constant and it is a cumbersome process and as such we require large amounts of coordination, teams and people to do that”.He said the IPL was close to finalising the new schedule but was waiting for final confirmations from some of the states. The government requested the IPL to re-work the dates since the league’s itinerary overlaps with the general elections.Modi said games would take place on all dates except May 16, the day of counting the votes. Modi also said three states so far had sent their written consent to host the IPL. “Rajasthan was the first state to agree,” Modi said, without naming the other two.

Denying the speculation about the venues in various sections of the media Modi confirmed Vishakapatnam and Ahmedabad will host a few games and said Dharamshala is likely too as well. “We have confirmations from Vishakapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala in terms of holding games there,” he said. “But the IPL is waiting for the last word from Dharamsala, which falls in the catchment area for Punjab.”He also did not rule out Nagpur yet. “They are still in the fray. What is happening is the schedule is being fine tuned every minute and when we move one game out of a particular city it has a big domino effect on all other games because it is not only a case of taking one game out of here and putting it up there. It is a cumbersome [process].”Modi denied reports that both Jaipur and Chennai will not be hosting any games. “Jaipur will be hosting games but the state had asked for blackout period during May so we worked out dates accordingly. Because of the blackout dates in Chennai some of the games have been moved.”