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The oldest and most popular television network in the United Kingdom, ITV has been awarded TV rights for broadcasting this year’s edition of the Indian Premier League in the UK. The IPL was without a television broadcaster in the UK after collapse of Setanta last year. However, IPL had announced that the matches would be streamed online free on Youtube all over the world. ITV bagged the rights for television broadcasting in UK and they will show 59 of the 60 matches this year on one of their digital channels ITV4.

This will also mean that cricket coverage in the UK will return to free-to-air after a long time as ITV4 can be seen free by almost 80 percent of the UK and around 20 million households in the UK should be able to view the matches. The only match that will not be shown, because of a commitment to show British Touring Car Championship racing from Thruxton, is between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils on April 4. It is also a landmark event as live cricket will be shown for the first time since 1970s. The feed will be provided by Sony and will be fronted by presenter Matt Smith and Bollywood actress Mandira Bedi.

The Indian Premier League will expand the number of franchisees to 10 franchisees with the addition of two new franchisees for the IPL 2011 season onwards. The IPL Management has already put application forms for the two new teams on sale. There are twelve cities in contention for the two new teams which include Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharamsala, Indore, Cuttack, Gwalior, Visakapatnam, Rajkot, Pune, Vadodara and Kochi. The first eight cities already have cricket stadiums while stadiums are in construction in the last four cities. The base price for the bidding for the two new franchisees are $225 million which is more than four times the base price of $50 million when the original eight franchisees were auctioned in 2008. The number of games in IPL would also increase to 94 games from the year 2011 instead of the present set of 59 games.

As per reports, the IPL Management has also set tougher conditions for applying for the two new teams. One of the major conditions is that the bidder has to have at least $1 billion (Rs.4,580 crores) and if a group makes a bid, it must contain an individual or a single party with that amount of money. As per the IPL’s tender condition, the bidders should submit a Rs 460-crore bank guarantee to participate in the bidding process. The IPL has set a base price of US $ 225 million per franchise. Many are also speculating that Ahmedabad might be one of the strongest contenders for an IPL team. The Ahmedabad based billionaire Gautam Adani-owned Adani Group has also submitted its bid for a new franchisee.

Videocon Industries-led team called P Sports Vision is supposed to have placed bid for Pune franchisee. There are also reports that the guardians of the laws of cricket, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is also supposed to be running for the Pune franchisee. The other prominent bidders might include Sahara Group, Jaypee Group and ICICI Ventures. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel is also speculated to have placed bid for either Pune or Nagpur franchisee. Bollywood stars like Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgn had also showed interest though there is no confirmation if any film stars have bid for any team this time round. There have been 11 bids supposed to have been submitted till now for the two new teams.

The winning bids for the two new franchisees would be revealed on Sunday, March 7 at 1200 IST. Many are speculating that Pune and Ahmedabad might have good chances of hosting the two new teams though everything would be revealed only this Sunday.

IPL had introduced the strategic time-outs last year during IPL 2 and they had told that they would continue with the time-outs in IPL 3 this year too. The IPL management has finally clarified the strategic time-outs for IPL 2010 and there are a few changes this year. One of the most significant changes is that the strategic time-outs have been reduced from seven and a half minutes per 20 over innings which was there in IPL 2 last year to only five minutes per 20 over innings this year. The five minute strategy breaks or time-outs have been divided this year into two time-outs of two and a half minutes each. The batting side can ask for the time-out anytime between the sixth and eighth overs while the bowling side can ask for the time-out anytime between eleventh and sixteenth overs. The IPL commissioner Lalit Modi said that the main purpose of the time-outs was to allow teams to discuss strategies during the game so that extra time is not wasted in discussing strategies during the course of the game and thereby reducing match-time delays. However, some of the franchisees still have a bit of concern as they fear that even this short delays might break the player’s concentration.