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DLF Ltd, India’s largest real estate firm, has decided not to renew its title sponsorship of the IPL, ending its five-year association with the tournament

Tariq Engineer28-Aug-2012DLF Ltd, India’s largest real estate firm, has decided not to renew its title sponsorship of the IPL, ending its five-year association with the tournament. The company had the first right of refusal on a new contract, but was considered unlikely to sign up a second time given the slump in the real estate market and the decline in the IPL’s television ratings over the last two years.”Sponsoring IPL over the last five years was a strategic decision wherein we wanted to establish our brand presence across India as the leading real estate player,” Rajeev Talwar, DLF Group Executive Director told . “Our IPO came in 2007, a year before the IPL started. We were very aggressive pan-India then. We had good presence in all big cities.” The company is now concentrating on those cities where its core strengths lie.According to Talwar, DLF spent Rs 250 crore (US$ 44.96 million) on the IPL over the five years of its contract. While it has pulled out of the Twenty20 league, it still has plans to promote other sports, though Talwar ruled out owning a franchise or a team. He also said the amount of money the company would spend “will be less than Rs 50 crore ($9 million) a year that we spent in IPL.”The company’s decision not to renew their deal with the BCCI is also another indication of the value of the IPL taking a hit over the last couple of years as TV ratings have flattened. Ratings for IPL 5 were just about in line with 2011. The overall tournament rating was 3.45, compared to 3.51 a year ago, according to Tam Sports, a division of TAM Research, the leading television ratings agency in India. In contrast, the 2010 tournament had an average TVR of 5.51.In April, Talwar told the that renewing the contract “depends on how do they [the BCCI] perceive the value.” The BCCI had indicated any new sponsorship agreement would be for a higher value than the original agreement. DLF was obviously not willing to meet the board’s asking price. In a climate where the general economic situation is worsening – revenues for Multi-Screen Media, the tournament’s broadcaster, dropped this year as companies cut back on advertising – means the board could have a tough time finding a replacement sponsor at the price that they desire.DLF is the third title sponsor to pull out of a BCCI backed tournament in the last two years. Airtel pulled out as title sponsors of the Champions League T20 in 2011 while their replacement, Nokia, pulled out earlier this year. DLF is already involved in golf and tennis. It provides prize money of about Rs 1 crore ($179,000) to the winner of the annual DLF Masters and is one of the sponsors of this year’s Davis Cup, on which they will be spending Rs 2 crore, according to Talwar.

A century from skipper Alviro Petersen helped Glamorgan dominate the first day of their County Championship Division Two match against Essex at Cardiff

02-Aug-2011
Scorecard
Alvrio Petersen made the most of being asked to bat first•PA Photos

A century from skipper Alviro Petersen helped Glamorgan dominate the first day of their County Championship Division Two match against Essex at Cardiff.Petersen scored 133 out of Glamorgan’s 313 for 3 after his opposite number James Foster won the toss and decided to put Glamorgan in to bat.The decision was understandable in the overcast and humid morning conditions but Glamorgan could not have expected the opening session to run as smoothly as it did, with Petersen and Gareth Rees reaching lunch with ease at 101 for no loss.Despite winning their last three games and bowling Leicestershire out for 34 last Friday, when David Masters recorded figures of eight for 10 at Garon Park in Southend-on-Sea, Essex failed to produce one chance before lunch.Masters and Maurice Chambers did beat the bat a couple of times in their second spells but it was very much Glamorgan’s morning. The opening pair easily surpassed their previous best opening partnership of 68 against Gloucestershire in May.And their dominance continued with both batsmen completing their half-centuries in the over after lunch. Rees’ came up from 94 balls with six fours and Petersen reached his from 101 balls with seven boundaries.Glamorgan looked certain break their first-wicket record against Essex – Steve James and Hugh Morris’ 199 at Chelmsford in 1996 – but Rees fell victim to the leg-spinner Tom Craddock. Rees was caught behind attempting a scoop shot to leave the home side 184 for one in the 57th over.That was just after Petersen reached his second century for Glamorgan – his first in Wales – from 182 balls with 14 fours. The home side continued to dominate and reached tea at 217 for one from 64 overs. To Essex’s credit, the bowlers did not let Glamorgan score at a fast rate with Masters and Craddock keeping the runs down.But it was Chambers who got the second breakthrough after tea when Petersen feathered one behind. He went for 133 from 228 balls to leave Glamorgan 251 for two in the 76th over.Michael Powell and Will Bragg looked as if they had negotiated the threat of the second new ball but only three overs from the close, Bragg went leg before attempting to turn a ball from Masters into the legside. That forced Glamorgan into employing a nightwatchman – Will Owen, who survived until the close.

The low intensity of floodlights at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium has been a talking point during the Asia Cup, and it could be a factor in Thursday’s final as well

Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla23-Jun-2010The low intensity of floodlights at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium has been a talking point during the Asia Cup, and it could be a factor in Thursday’s final as well. Kumar Sangakkara, the home team’s captain, thought it was important enough to bowl first in the dead rubber against India on Tuesday so that his side could get some batting time under the floodlights.The Sri Lankan board has been surprised by the complaints from players and insists it has done all it had to before the start of the tournament. “There have been plenty of day-night matches at Dambulla before and there have been no official complaints about the lights then,” Ashley de Silva, the Sri Lanka Cricket’s head of cricket operations, told Cricinfo. “We just had to check whether the floodlights worked.”The game’s governing body, the ICC, which has no direct involvement in the operational running of the Asia Cup, has elaborate guidelines on floodlight parameters from the necessary illumination of different parts of the playing area to the positioning of the towers.The complaints about the quality of Dambulla’s floodlights started on the opening day of the tournament, when Lasith Malinga said they were not up to international standard. It continued with Gautam Gambhir, Man of the Match in the gripping game against Pakistan, who said after the victory: “I wasn’t able to pick the spinners at all, it was impossible to pick them from the hand. The light has to improve.”Sangakkara said the batsmen needed to be more watchful while batting under lights at Dambulla. “You can’t exactly get into a rhythm as a batsman and keep hitting the ball the same way,” he said. “You’ve got to watch the ball really closely and, with the lights, that’s not an easy task once the colour goes off the ball.”Except in the final league game when Sangakkara experimented, all teams that have won the toss have decided to bat, wary of the bowler-friendly conditions and light later in the day.

India A remain in contention to finish on top of the table heading into the final round

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Sep-2024India A bounced back from a first-round defeat to record a 186-run win over the Shreyas Iyer-led India D to remain in contention to finish on top of the table heading into the final round of the 2024-25 Duleep Trophy.Having set India D a target of 488, they were made to toil for 82 overs to earn an outright, with Shams Mulani and Tanush Kotian playing key roles with the ball, picking up seven wickets between them. Mulani was named Player of the Match for his four wickets in the match along with his crucial first-innings 89 that helped India A set up the game.Resuming on 62 for 1, Bhui drove the innings and brought up his 18th first-class hundred, but none of the other batters managed to play out time. Iyer and Sanju Samson, both of whom missed out in the first innings, made 41 and 40 respectively.Bhui and Yash Dubey put on 100 for the second wicket as India D’s pursuit to secure a draw received a massive leg up. But the run out of Dubey followed by Devdutt Padikkal’s dismissal on 1 off Shams Mulani set them back.Iyer and Samson were typically adventurous and batted with flair, at no point looking to rein their natural game. Iyer became Mulani’s second victim when he was bowled. That wicket opened the floodgates for his Mumbai team-mate Kotian to get into the thick of things. Kotian ended up with a four-for as he sliced through the lower order to seal victory in the final session.India A’s other notable performers included 32-year-old Railways batter Pratham Singh and Hyderabad batter Tilak Varma, both of whom slammed hundreds to set up a declaration late on the third day.

Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi could be in line to earn as much as PKR 4.5 million a month as a retainer

Osman Samiuddin04-Aug-2023Pakistan’s players are set to receive “historic” increases in their new central contracts, even as negotiations on their participation in overseas T20 leagues continue. Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi, in the top category of contracts, could be in line to earn as much as PKR 4.5 million (USD 15,900 approx) a month as a retainer, four times as much as was on offer to top players in last year’s contracts.The new contracts are likely to do away with last year’s format where red- and white-ball players were split, and return to previous years with four different categories of players. Babar, Rizwan and Afridi, as captain and cross-format stars, will be in category A.Category B players are in line to receive in the region of PKR 3 million (USD 10,600 approx), while those in category C and D will get between PKR 0.75-1.5 million (USD 2650-5300 approx). The retainer values, if signed off on, represent the biggest increase in years, as part of an overall offering that was, according to officials, “historic”.The hike is offset somewhat by the sharp depreciation of the Pakistan rupee in the last year, as well as an economy in which inflation has been spiralling out of control. But even accounting for that, the retainer increase is more than double, at least across the top category. It also comes a year before the ICC’s new revenue distribution model kicks in, in which the PCB’s annual earnings of PKR 9.6 billion approx (USD 34 million) are more than double what they were over the last ICC rights cycle.Related

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That will make a significant difference for players who have been among the lowest paid internationally, a position exacerbated by often restrictive policies around playing in foreign T20 leagues. Pakistan’s players are not allowed to play in the IPL and their participation in other leagues has been subject traditionally to changing policies each time a new administration comes in.Only last year, leading players delayed signing the contracts because they were unhappy with the restrictive terms around playing in leagues, under the then administration of Ramiz Raja. That was the second time since 2019 that players had expressed unhappiness with terms, which is as close to a labour dispute as is possible in a landscape without a players’ association.The number of leagues players will be allowed to participate in next year has not yet been finalised but is part of ongoing negotiations. As things stand, players in the top two categories are to be allowed one league other than the PSL, with those in the lower categories to be allowed more than one.But there is likely to be flexibility on the issue and that clause could change by the time the contracts are finalised. Usman Wahla, the PCB’s international director, and more recently Misbah-ul-Haq, as an advisor to Zaka Ashraf, have been leading discussions, talking to a group of senior players.Importantly, there is a recognition within the PCB that players who are not a part of these leagues are missing out on big, potentially life-changing earnings. In some cases, senior players in demand on the league circuit could make two to three times more per year from league deals than they do now.There is also an acknowledgement that, in terms of planning, the league circuit needs to be treated as a separate 12-month calendar and players’ commitments worked out accordingly. Najam Sethi, Ashraf’s predecessor as board head, had also been planning a more open policy with regard to leagues and had been negotiating with the ILT20 about the participation of Pakistan players this season.The ILT20 was a particularly thorny issue last season, the PCB demanding a fee from the league for each player who took part. Part of that was also because the ILT20 took place in a busy home season for Pakistan in which their best players were bound to be taking part.Domestic contracts will also be presented to players soon, with likely increased retainers as well as the prospect of enhanced earnings by playing in two first-class tournaments, one for regional teams and one for department-based sides.Final discussions are due to take place with players over the weekend, the results of which will be presented to Ashraf early next week.

Statement issued on behalf of family says that “prognosis is unclear”

ESPNcricinfo staff10-May-2022Graham Thorpe, the former England batter, is “seriously ill” in hospital, according to the Professional Cricketers’ Association.Thorpe, 52, played 100 Tests for England between 1993 and 2005, averaging 44.66 with 16 centuries. He was recently announced as the new head coach of Afghanistan following a decade of involvement within England’s coaching set-up, which came to an end after this winter’s 4-0 Ashes loss in Australia.A statement from the PCA, issued at the request of Thorpe’s family, read: “Graham Thorpe has recently fallen seriously ill and is currently in hospital receiving treatment. His prognosis is unclear at this stage and we ask for privacy for him and his family at this time. Our thoughts are with Graham and his family.”Thorpe’s former county Surrey, where he spent the whole of his 17-year first-class career, added: “The thoughts of everyone at the Club are with Graham, his wife Amanda, and family at this time. He is an icon of the English game, known by millions of cricket fans and forever a favourite son of Surrey CCC.”After a century on debut against Australia at Trent Bridge, Thorpe soon established himself as one of the central figures of England’s Test team in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, with his selfless counterattacking style helping the team to emerge from the doldrums to become, by the time of his final Test against Bangladesh in June 2005, a side ready to compete on an equal footing with Ricky Ponting’s Australia in that summer’s legendary Ashes series.Thorpe’s own zenith came in the winter of 2000-01, when he was instrumental in England’s back-to-back series wins in Pakistan and Sri Lanka – to this day one of the team’s finest achievements.At Lahore in the first Test of that winter, he memorably compiled a century containing a solitary boundary, to lay the foundation for a 1-0 series win that he himself went on to seal in virtual darkness in Karachi later that tour.Then, three months later in the oppressive heat of Colombo, his twin innings of 113 not out and 32 not out carried England to a come-from-behind series victory against Sri Lanka, an achievement all the more impressive given they had succumbed to an innings defeat in the first Test in Galle.After retirement, he moved into coaching after a brief spell in the media, and after a stint with New South Wales in the Sheffield Shield in 2007, he joined the England set-up in 2010, initially as batting coach and later as assistant coach to Chris Silverwood, for whom he stepped in at Sydney this winter when Silverwood had to isolate following a Covid diagnosis.That role ended earlier this year when he, Silverwood and Ashley Giles, the former director of cricket, were all sacked in the wake of the Ashes loss. Thorpe’s own position had come under scrutiny after England’s defeat in the fifth Test, after the police were called in to break up an early-morning drinking session, involving several England and Australia players, at the team hotel in Hobart – allegedly after Thorpe had lit a cigar in an indoor space, which is against the law in Tasmania.

Freeman played 11 times for Australia and also had the distinction of scoring his first Test runs with a six

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Dec-2020Former Australia pace bowler Eric Freeman, who made his Test debut during India’s 1967-68 tour, has passed away at the age of 76.Freeman, a very successful bowler and useful lower-order batsman for South Australia, played his first Test at Brisbane in January 1968 and his opening scoring shot was a six – the first player to achieve the feat. He claimed three wickets in India’s first innings in what became a close victory for Australia after India had given themselves a chance of chasing down 395 by reaching 310 for 5.Freeman would play another 10 Tests, including two on the 1968 Ashes tour, and enjoyed a solid all-round return of 183 runs at 30.50 and 13 wickets at 30.07 during the 1968-69 series against West Indies.His final Test came on the 1970 tour of South Africa which would be their last international cricket before sporting isolation.Freeman’s career-best first-class figures of 8 for 47 helped South Australia to the 1970-71 Sheffield Shield title as he took 13 wickets in the match against New South Wales.Freeman was also an elite football player, representing Port Adelaide and he topped the club’s goalkicking list in all five of his complete seasons.After his playing days finished in the 1973-74 season he went into an extensive career as administrator, coach and broadcaster.In 2002 he was honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to sport.”Eric will forever be remembered as one of the greatest athletes South Australia has ever produced,” Cricket Australia chairman Earl Eddings said. “He was an allrounder in every sense of the word – powerful with both bat and ball in cricket and a prodigious goal-kicker with the Magpies in the winter months.”He remained a popular member of the cricket family after his retirement as a player with commentary roles on the ABC and junior development positions with West Torrens.”On behalf of everyone within Australian cricket, we pass on our sincere condolences to Eric’s family.”South Australia CEO Keith Bradshaw said: “Eric Freeman was supreme talent, but it was his determination and spirit that saw him rise to the elite level in two sports and represent his state with pride.”

Just like getting back in the saddle after being thrown from a horse, batsmen have to confront danger

Melinda Farrell in Leeds21-Aug-2019There is a widely accepted theory that, in the wake of a traumatic or painful event, it is helpful to face a similar experience as soon as possible. Get caught in a rip while swimming in the ocean? Go to the beach the next day. Thrown from a horse? Hop back in the saddle as soon as possible. Suffer a miserable break up? Swipe right often and jump back in that dating pool.The thinking is that turning on the light and facing what was a monster in the dark can reveal it is merely an awkwardly draped coat stand. To avoid confronting it allows it to grow and gnaw persistently at any lingering insecurity.In Australia’s case the monster is Jofra Archer’s rapid and deceptive bouncer: it has already cost them the presence of Steve Smith at Headingley, it threatened to do similar damage to Marnus Labuschagne, and Matthew Wade has reason to be thankful for his diminutive stature – the ball grazed the top of his helmet as he tried to duck under it.Also read: Australia yearn to take back control at LeedsOf course, batters cop hits and bruises all the time and being able to handle fast, short-pitched bowling is just part of the game; several England players likely have Pat Cummins to thank for any tattoos appearing after the Lord’s Test. Thankfully, blows to the head are less common, although Jason Roy’s concussion scare in the build-up to the third Test is another reminder of the danger. But the serious sort can have a lasting impact and any perceived hesitation is exploited by opposition bowlers who have the necessary arsenal. Stuart Broad’s battle with the short ball after a bouncer rearranged his nose was obvious and Chris Rogers has spoken openly about the lasting effects of multiple concussions on his batting. In other cases, the lingering mental effects may only be minor or short-lived.Sometimes, according to Joe Root, the greatest injury is to a player’s pride.”The thing that hurts the most is your ego,” said Root, speaking to the media at Headingley. “You’re stood out there in front of 35,000 people and someone has mugged you off a bit. That’s how it feels when I’ve been hit. You pride yourself on being able to either get out of the way or take it on and you make sure, first and foremost, you stay in and keep batting. You don’t want to be in that position again and let them get one up on you.”I’ve never had a blow as serious as that, so hard to comment in Steve’s case but you could see the concern on the guys out in the field. Jofra and Jos [Buttler] were straight over. I think everyone relaxed a bit when he got up and the doc was having conversations with him. But as a batter you pride yourself on being able to manage those deliveries but it’s like anything, it’s a psychological battle. When they go to that plan it’s like, can you play it well like you would play the top of off stump? If you get out in that fashion, it’s seen as a good ball but, if you’re caught at deep square leg because someone has got a bouncer right on the money, it looks like a rash shot.”When time comes for Smith’s return, Tim Paine believes that the seemingly impermeable mental bubble that has encased him throughout this series will be firmly back in place.”Steve loves batting,” said Paine. “I don’t think that’s going to change. Marnus is strange, he seems to enjoy getting hit on the head, so he’s a different kettle of fish altogether, but I think it has happened at times. Marnus has handled himself exceptionally, his innings was unbelievable after that happened. Steve Smith’s the best player in the world, he will come back in the next Test, if it’s next Test, or the tour game and we’re expecting him to be the same old Steve Smith. He’s a high-quality player and he’ll adapt as he always has.”(Let’s just pause for a moment to say, what the hell, Marnus?)The Australians know what is coming at the end of Archer’s laconic run up and there will be plenty of it in Leeds. They looked to attack and get on top of England’s shiny new toy at Lord’s but, as Paine admits, all the preparation and planning and net sessions can only do so much.”Obviously we copped some short-pitched bowling, I think guys prepared for it last week but it’s another thing facing it,” said Paine. “Guys have got plans in place and we’ve prepared really well for it. It’s about going out and executing it. We think the Lord’s wicket was quite a difficult one to face short-pitched bowling on, so we’re interested to see how this wicket plays. But it’s about adapting to the situation, the wicket and what any of their bowlers are trying to do. We’ve got to have a plan to counter that and I know our boys will.”And how do the Australians turn on the light and demystify the monster?”You put all the gear on and you get in there. It’s as simple as it is.”