India win by 7 wickets, qualify for the final

Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar guided India to a much needed win against Sri Lanka to reach the finals of the CB Series in Hobart on Tuesday. Yuvraj Singh too make a significant contribution as he scores crusial 35 runs before Rohit Sharma joined Gautam Gambhir to score the winning run.

Earlier, A spectacular middle-order collapse saw Sri Lanka make just 179 from 47.1 overs and India had few problems reaching the target in 32.2 overs, scoring 180 for three.

Although Sri Lanka still have one game remaining in the series, against Australia on Friday, they cannot reach the finals and it has been a disappointing tournament for last year's World Cup finalists.

Importantly for India, star batsman Sachin Tendulkar burst out of his form slump ahead of the finals against Australia with his first half-century of the series.

Tendulkar was back to his brilliant best as he punished the bowlers, hitting three successive boundaries off seamer Ishara Amerasinghe in making 63 from 54 balls, including 10 fours.

Gautam Gambhir continued his impressive form with an unbeaten 63, while Yuvraj Singh looked dangerous with a rapid 36.

Sri Lanka had appeared to be cruising towards a big total at 72 for one after being sent in to bat, with veteran opener Sanath Jayasuriya back in some touch and Kumar Sangakkara continuing his good form.

However, Sangakkara's dismissal for 33, caught behind by Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni from the bowling of the recalled Praveen Kumar, sparked a destructive collapse.

Sri Lanka lost 6-21 in just over 11 overs to slump to 93 for seven.

Kumar, who was named man of the match, and teenage paceman Ishant Sharma did most of the damage, claiming four wickets apiece.

Sharma again impressed with 4-41, while Kumar, playing just his second game of the series, grabbed three wickets in as many overs to tear the heart out of the Sri Lankan batting and finish with 4-31.

The teenager so has picked up 13 wickets in the tri-series at 19.46.

Sangakkara was quickly followed back to the pavilion by captain Mahela Jayawardene, caught by Rohit Sharma from the bowling of Kumar for just three.

With the skipper gone, the innings quickly fell apart.

Chamara Silva's struggles continued when he fell for a duck and Jayasuriya then threw his wicket away when he top edged an attempted pull from the bowling of Irfan Pathan on 34.

Tillakaratne Dilshan made just eight and Chaminda Vaas played a poor shot to fall to Sharma for a duck.

It was then left to Chamara Kapugedera and tail-ender Lasith Malinga to add some respectability to the innings, the pair putting on 46 before the latter became Sharma's fourth victim.

Kapugedera showed rare fight late in the innings, making a stylish 57.

Meanwhile, Mahendra Singh Dhoni became the second Indian wicketkeeper and 17th in the world to take 100 one-day international catches during India's last tri-series league game against Sri Lanka.

Dhoni, who had 98 catches and 31 stumpings to his credit before the match, reached the milestone when he pouched an edge of Chamara Silva off Praveen Kumar for the fourth wicket to fall in the Sri Lankan innings.

He went on to take one more catch in the innings to take his tally to 101 and total dismissals to 132 from 104 matches.

Dhoni's 132 is second only to Nayan Mongia who had effected 110 catches and 44 stumpings to aggregate 154 dismissals from 140 matches while playing between 1994 and 2000.

Dhoni is 16th overall in the total number of ODI dismissals in a list headed by retiring Australian Adam Gilchrist who has 471 dismissals (416 catches and 55 stumpings).

The Indian captain has 78 dismissals from 26 Tests (65 catches and 13 stumpings) to his credit and two dismissals -- all catches - from 10 Twenty20 matches he has played so far.

Malinga departs on 12. An easy catch for R Uthappa on Ishant Sharma's delivery.

Praveen Kumar has been proved the most succesfull bowler so far. He has taken three crusial wickets of Sangakkara(33), Jayawardene (3) and Silva (0). Sangakkara and Silva were caught behind the stumps by MS Dhoni while Rohit Sharma took a difficult catch of Jayawardene.

After 31 overs Sri Lanka scored 106 and has lost 7 wickets.

An Indian win would guarantee them a berth in the tri-series finals, while Sri Lanka need a victory to keep their finals hopes alive.

Earlier, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to field first in Tuesday's tri-series one-day international against Sri Lanka in Hobart.

India made two changes to the side that lost to Australia by 18 runs in Sydney on Sunday with Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel replacing Virender Sehwag and Shantha Sreesanth.

Sri Lanka, who need to win the match to stay in contention for a place in the finals, made one change to the side that lost to Australia in Melbourne on Friday with Chamara Kapugedera coming in for Farveez Maharoof.

Teams:

India - Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel.

Sri Lanka - Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Dilruwan Perera, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chamara Silva, Chamara Kapugedera, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ishara Amerasinghe.

Ishant Sharma fined 15% of his match fee

India's upcoming fast bowler Ishant Sharma has been fined 15% of his match fee in a disciplinary action after a face-off with Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds on Sunday.

Ishant Sharma was summoned by match referee Jeff Crowe for a disciplinary hearing after a face-off with Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds in Sydney.

Ishant had exchanged heated words with Symonds and had pointed fingers towards the pavilion after he dismissed the Australian all-rounder in their cricket tri-series match.

Ishant was charged under Clause 1.6 of the ICC Code of Conduct. The hearing was held at the team hotel.

77 players to go under hammer for IPL

A total of 77 players, both Indian and foreigners, will go under the hammer here on Wednesday as cricket enters uncharted waters in an important phase of the multi-million dollar DLF Indian Premier League.

It will be for the first-ever time that international cricketers from around the world will be up for grabs by the eight city-specific franchises who have bought teams by paying a total of $723.3 million to the BCCI-floated IPL for taking part in the April 18-June 1 Twenty20 League.

The franchise owners - ranging from top industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya to Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta - will bid for several top names in international cricket.

The auction will be a private one to be conducted by an independent professional auctioneer Richard Madley who will be the sole arbiter to all aspects of the auction, the IPL said in a statement ahead of the pioneering effort.

Five iconic players of India - Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag - are not part of the bid process as they have to play for their respective city franchises - Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mohali and Delhi.

Commenting on the player auction guidelines, IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi said, "The player auction rule is our attempt to make tomorrow's auction a huge success. The Governing Council of the DLF Indian Premier League is pulling out all stops to ensure a free, transparent and fair bidding process for a truly historic first ever auction of cricketers in India".

Included among the global cricket super stars on sale are Australian captain Ricky Ponting, highest Test wicket taker Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka and controversial Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar.

Also among the list of players are retired Australian greats Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath and South Africa's Shaun Pollock, apart from retiring Australian Adam Gilchrist.

Each player has an annual base player fee. This base player fee assumes that the player is available for the entire season of the IPL season including, if applicable, the Champions League (expected to happen in October).

This fee will be adjusted on a pro-rata basis, depending on the availability of players in the first year.

The IPL Governing Council has decided that not more than $5 million and not less than $3.3 million can be bid for each lot of international players by each franchise, to ensure a level playing field in the tournament.

Each franchise would have to buy sixteen players at the minimum, out of which four should be from India and under the age of 22 and four other local players hailing from catchment areas earmarked by the IPL for each of the eight franchises.

Among the icon players, Tendulkar will be part of the Mumbai franchise owned by Ambhani's REL, Dravid will play for the Bangalore franchise owned by Vijay Mallya's UB Group, Ganguly for Kolkata owned by Shah Rukh's Red Chillies Entertainment, Yuvraj for Mohali owned by Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia, R Burman and Group and Sehwag will lead the Delhi team, owned by GMR Holdings.

The other three franchise owners are Deccan Chronicle Group (Hyderabad), India Cements (Chennai), Delhi (GRM Group) and Emerging Media Group (Jaipur).

The player fees of any icon player - being 115 per cent of the highest player fee in that franchise's squad - will count towards the upper limit.

The cap placed on bids for a pool of international players by each franchise does not include the local (apart from the iconic player) and under 22 players whose minimum salary has been fixed as $20,000.

For the Ranji and other auction players the base price has been fixed as $50,000 per year.

The contract with the player will be for a fixed term of three years.

Each franchise can have a maximum of two centrally contracted Australian players in its squad and/or a maximum of two Australian players from each state association in its squad, as per the agreement arrived at between Cricket Australia and IPL.

IPL may rake in Rs 600 crore ad revenue

The Indian Premier League (IPL), the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) Twenty20 tournament, is estimated to generate an advertising revenue of over Rs 600 crore in its first season.

In the first year, each of the eight team owners will spend around Rs 25 crore on marketing and promotion, which include below-the-line activities, city-based club activations and so on, say sources.

"We will spend in the range of Rs 20 crore on team promotions," said P K Iyer, managing director, Deccan Chronicle, which owns the Hyderabad team.

Delhi team owner GMR Holdings and Jaipur team executives too confirmed that they would spend around Rs 20 crore each in the first year.

"We will spend over Rs 16 crore on promotions as we will concentrate on brand building," said Fraser Castellino, the CEO of Emerging Media, who along with Lachlan Murdoch owns the Jaipur team.

Industry estimates put the total advertising pie for the country, including below-the-line activities, at around Rs 22,000 crore a year.

Advertising for IPL will be generated through four major avenues, namely, air time sold by Sony Entertainment Television, BCCI's own marketing plan, promotional activities of the eight teams and from brands associated with the league.

An industry source said BCCI had allocated roughly Rs 100 crore as its advertising budget, while Sony is estimated to earn nearly Rs 300 crore from ad slots. In addition, close to Rs 200 crore will be spent on the teams for promotion and marketing.

"While the brands associated with the league may not necessarily increase their marketing and promotional budget, they will cut their spends on a particular medium. So their overall contribution may not be very high. However, for the first round, Rs 300 crore will be added to the total advertising pie. IPL will be a new contributor to the ad industry," said R Gowthaman, managing director, south-west India, Mindshare. However, experts believe the same may not hold true later.

"IPL will have a salient launch and the advertising spends will be substantial. But as the league gains popularity, the ad spends will come down," said Vikram Sakhuja, COO, South Asia, Group M.

Team selections
Meanwhile, cricketing action in IPL is about to get under way as team owners make a wish-list of the players they will aggressively bid for at the players' auction to be held on Wednesday.

While Reliance Industries, which was the highest bidder in the team auction and won the Mumbai team for $111.9 million, already has Sachin Tendulkar on board, it is believed to be in talks with ICC representative Jamie Stewart for the position of advisor.

"The upcoming player auction will help decide the final composition of the team. We will obviously aim for a winning combination and cannot divulge competitive strategy at this stage," an RIL spokesperson said.

Vijay Mallya's Bangalore team, which was won for $111.6 million, will be RIL's closest competitor, according to sources.

"We will be aggressive in our bids. Our team motto is 'playing to win' and this will be reflected in everything we do," said Vijay Rekhi, president and managing director, UB Group.

The Bangalore team would have Rahul Dravid as captain.

Rekhi added that they would also work towards building a loyal fan base for the Bangalore team.

"Since the first match will be played between Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata team and our team, we will dedicate a space in the stadium for fans to cheer," he said.

With BCCI deciding that each team owner will have to bid between $3.3 million and $5 million a year to rope in players from the 80 the board has listed, which does not include catchment area players, it will be a close call.

For instance, the Delhi franchisee owner, GMR Holdings, will spend around $4 million, say sources. GMR has roped in T A Sekar (chief coach of the MRF Pace Foundation) as the team advisory and has partnered event management and entertainment agency, Wizcraft International.

Virender Sehwag was today announced as the tentative team captain with Greg Shepherd as the coach. GMR has decided to name the team Delhi Daredevils.

For the Jaipur team, the former managing director of IMG South Asia, Ravi Krishnan, has been appointed vice-chairman. He will advise the team on commercial, operational and on-field activities. Ogilvy is on board as the creative agency.

Emerging Media is keen on M S Dhoni as captain for the Jaipur team and will bid for cricketers from South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Sources added that Greg Chappell would be the team's coach.

DLF win IPL title sponsorship rights

India's leading real estate developer DLF Ltd has bagged the title sponsorship rights for the Indian Premier League extravaganza that is set to kick-off on April 18.

A statement from the IPL on Wednesday said the rights for title sponsorship were won by DLF "through a fair and transparent open bid process with a highest bid of Rs 40 crore per annum. The deal gives DLF Ltd. exclusive title sponsorship rights for five years, valuing in excess of Rs 200 crores".

The title sponsorship race was between DLF Limited, World Sports Group (WSG), which had bid on behalf of Hero Honda Motors (India) Ltd, Percept D'Mark and 21st Century Media.

"The title sponsorship race was tightly-contested between three participants, with DLF emerging the final winner through a fair and transparent process," said Lalit Modi, Chairman and Commissioner, Indian Premier League.

"I am truly happy to have India's leading real estate developer DLF as our title sponsors, as they happen to share a common vision with the BCCI to make the Indian Premier League one of the finest cricketing leagues in the world. It is exciting to have an eclectic mix of elite Indian businessmen, Bollywood personalities and corporates as our allies, working collectively as one to ensure the success of the IPL.

"On behalf of the IPL Governing Council, I would like to thank everyone who participated and supported us throughout the bidding process," he added.

Rajeev Talwar, Group Executive Director, DLF Limited, said, "It gives us immense pleasure winning the title sponsorship rights of IPL, which will now be known as the DLF Indian Premier League. At DLF, we always emphasise on nurturing and recognizing talent and this is one more achievement towards nurturing professional talent for the game of cricket in this country. This is game which has mass appeal all over India and both cricket as well as DLF will grow hand-in-hand."

With the media broadcast rights, the eight team franchises and title sponsorship rights declared, all eyes are on the players' auction scheduled to take place on February 20 through the open bid process in association with IMG, the world's leading sports media and entertainment agency. As many as 85 international and Team India players will be up for auction between the eight franchises on that day.

Earlier, leading sports broadcaster Sony Max and World Sport Group bagged the IPL's global media and production rights for US $1.026 billion. The exclusive franchise rights for the eight-city league were won by Shah Rukh Khan (Kolkata), Preity Zinta (Mohali), RIL Pvt Ltd (Mumbai), GMR Holdings (Delhi), UB Group (Bangalore), Indian Cements Ltd (Chennai) , Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad) and Emerging Media (Jaipur).

The League kicks-off on April 18, with high voltage action expected between Sharukh Khan's Kolkata franchise and business baron Vijay Mallya's Bangalore tam at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore.

The eight-franchise tournament will run for 44 days. Each franchise will play all others on a home and away basis with seven matches at home. The top four franchises in the league will contest the semi-finals and the victorious semi-finalists will meet in the grand final, all over one weekend, in Mumbai.

The inaugural season of the IPL will showcase 59 matches and provided broadcasters and in-stadia spectators 177 hours of live family entertainment, which will also be viewed by a significant international audience.

All matches will be during late afternoon and evening to coincide with prime time for television and providing a convenient time for the stadium audience.

Ishant is a dangerous bowler, admits Ponting

Australian captain Ricky Ponting conceded on Sunday that his tormentor Ishant Sharma is a "dangerous bowler" but stopped short of rating the Indian attack as the best he has seen in home conditions in the recent past.

"Ishant has done well in the latter half of this tour so far. He is a dangerous bowler," conceded a sombre Ponting.

"(S) Sreesanth has also looked good but it's too early to say this is the best attack seen in Australian conditions for sometime now as England was here last year," he said.

The young Indian attack, led by Sharma, booked Australia out for 159 in 43.1 overs after Ponting had chosen to bat first at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. The Aussie skipper was suitably impressed.

"He is different in the sense that he hits the deck hard and gets some inconsistent bounce. I don't know whether it's because he changes his action."

"He looks dangerous and would be even more to the left-handers. Even to the right-handers, the kind of in-swing he manages is a bit unusual," Ponting said.

Ponting said that in his first two overs, Matthew Hayden seemed to have got on top of the young bowler.

"Matty (Hayden) was on top of him. He began with wides and no balls and we sensed he was not at his best. But he recovered and his overall figures were good."

A shy-looking Ishant said that his plan to Ponting has been to bowl on the fourth stump.

"I tried to follow my plan against the Australian batsmen. For Ponting, it was to bowl to him on the fourth stump."

He said that when he went for 18 runs in his second over, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni gave him some valuable advice.

"When I went for 18 runs, Dhoni came to me and asked me to stick to my plans and not try something which was alien to me. It calmed me down and I began bowling to my strength," the Delhi speedster said.

Sharma, who has taken a heavy workload on this tour, including bowling full throttle at the nets, admitted he was feeling a bit tired at the end of the game.

"I am feeling a bit tired now, my stomach is paining. But having bowled long spells at Adelaide, I think my stamina is improving."

"I will continue to bowl properly at nets as it's the practice which makes you a better bowler," Ishant added.

Meanwhile, Ponting rubbished his batsmen for the poor display they put out in the middle.

"We were not good enough and were very poor in batting. We didn't have enough runs. We tried to stick to our task and had half a chance of winning and that's the only positive we have from the game."

"Their seamers bowled so well that Harbhajan could bowl his first six overs for six runs or something like that," he said.

Ponting now foresees an interesting tournament ahead, more so that his fast bowlers, particularly Brett Lee, are in need of rotation.

"It's a pretty interesting tournament now. The next couple of games are going to be pretty important for all the three teams. We now have a tight tussle on our hand."

"Lee bowled probably his quickest spell tonight but he is holding up very well. Perth (where Australia plays next) is the kind of venue where you need your best attack," he added.