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Bollywood and Hollywood stars will attend the opening ceremony of the second season of IPL T20 if reports are to be believed. Hollywood actors Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman are likely to grace the opening ceremony on April 18 at Newlands alongside IPL franchise owners and Bollywood stars Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty. Last year’s runner-up Chennai Super Kings will play the opening match against Mumbai Indians while IPL season 1 winner Rajasthan Royals will take the challenge of Bangalore Royal Challengers in the second match subsequently on the same venue.

The match tickets for the opening for the opening matches will go on sale from April 3 and it has been kept modest and in terms with the 2007 ICC T20 Cricket World Cup. The tickets will start from Rand 50 for children, Rand 100 for a grass ticket and upto Rand 200 for a seat (1 South African Rand ~ 5.5 Indian National Rupees). According to Stadium Authorities, there is major interest amongst the public for the matches and so the ticket prices have been kept affordable.

To increase the maximum occupancy of stadiums the IPL schedule has been organized in such a way that the maximum amount of matches are played in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg which are cities with the largest Indian population. Out of the 56 games to be played in IPL T20 season 2, 33 games has been staged in these three venues.

Let us wait for the next two weeks to see if the South African people likes the mix dose of cricket, Bollywood, Hollywood and cheerleaders. But going by the way the organizers are working on the event, it might become a success this year too.

IPL T20 seems to be developing into the single biggest event in cricket with big bucks following into the game. IPL was a huge success in its first season and it was expected to become even bigger this year in terms of monetary gains. However, IPL T20 season 2 had to change the venue from India to South Africa as it clashed with the Indian General Elections. And IPL has been trying different methods to increase the cash flow so that the tournament remains a huge success like last year or even more.

This has led to a five-minute ‘strategy break’ twice in every match to boost TV advertising revenues. If sources are to be believed, there might be a five minute ‘strategy break’ in the middle of every innings after 10 overs are bowled. This five-minute break might help increasing the IPL television advertising revenues in each game by 30 percent according to estimates. It is notable that Sony Entertainment Television (nowadays renamed to Multi Screen Media) had clinched the domestic telecast rights of IPL T20 season 2 for a staggering Rs. 8200 crore for the next nine years. It is supposed that this five-minute strategy break might have been one of the points in negotiating the deal.

Hope that this new formula works out. Though it is not sure as of now if the five-minute strategy break will really come into effect but only time will tell how efficient will it be if it is introduced when IPL 2 starts later this month.

The defending champions of the IPL T20 league Rajasthan Royals will clash with South Africa’s Twenty20 champions Nashua Cape Cobras on April 11 at Newlands. The Royals were earlier planning to play two games against the Cobras on April 11 and 12 in a warm up series named ‘Challenge of Champions’ but it has now been reduced to a single match. Newlands will also host the inaugural match of IPL T20 season 2 and so the second match had to be canceled as the IPL authorities require the host venues to be cleared six days in advance. The organizers of the warm up game has announced that they have kept 2000 free tickets for children below 12 years of age for the match while there would be a nominal R40 for adults and R20 for scholars.

Hope Rajasthan Royals starts their IPL season with a royal win in this warm up game.

It has now been officially announced by the Kolkata Knight Riders that there will be only one captain of Kolkata Knight Riders and there would not be multiple captains as declared earlier. This declaration was made after Sourav Ganguly and KKR coach John Buchanan had a four hour long meeting with the owner of KKR and bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan. The multi-captaincy theory made by John Buchanan had attracted a lot of controversy and protests especially in West Bengal. Though Sourav Ganguly has been declared as the only official captain of the KKR team but it has also been announced that there would be a group of advisers or strategists who would guide Ganguly in taking his decisions. These members including Ganguly and Buchanan would comprise the core cricketing team which will give quick suggestions.

Though the statements made by KKR did not mention who exactly would lead the team but it is supposed that Ganguly would be retained as the captain of KKR team.