IPL changes its own rules within a month

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Mumbai, Apr 19: Less than a month after announcing a final list of players for the DLF Indian Premier League that kicked off Friday at Bangalore, the organisers of the Twenty20 tournament seem to have forgotten it by allowing some franchise teams to include additional players.

The Bangalore Royal Challengers, led by Rahul Dravid and owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, did not have Australian pace bowler Ashley Noffke in the final list of names, but he surprisingly made an appearance and played in the opener at the Chinnanwawamy Stadium Friday.

Even the official website of the tournament, www.iplt20.com, in the second list of players representing all the eight franchise teams, did not have his name even a day after he had turned out for the Bangalore team.

News has now come from the West Indies that all rounder Dwayne Bravo is to play for the Sachin Tendulkar-led Mumbai Indians which could not be confirmed as sources in the squad could only say “we were having negotiations with the player but do not know their outcome” when they were informed of the development.

Strangely, the website does not have any information about the playing conditions for the much-hyped-about event which has drawn the attention of the cricket world because of the amount of money that had been spent to buy the players through the auction process, something unique to the willow game.

Asked for this information more than a month ago, IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi had said they were identical to the playing conditions for the T20 World Cup won by India in South Africa last September, and the authorities seemed to have decided that it’s the duty of the media persons covering the event to dig out this information on their own.

The website, which has been sold by the organisers $50 million, also did not have updated information with the scoreboard incomplete on the afternoon after the completion of the first match. The match update was also absent, though there’s a latest news section, till the afternoon after the conclusion of the tie. Neither did it have any information about the match officials who have been appointed for the matches and media personnel had to hunt for these and get them.

Incidentally, because of the selling of exclusive online rights to the North American website the IPL authorities had put stringent conditions for the mediapersons, both print and electronic, seeking accreditations.