Tuesday, April 28, 2009

2011 World Cup Final in India


India will host the final and one semi-final of the 2011 World Cup while Sri Lanka will stage the other semi-final, the tournament's organising committee decided in Mumbai on Tuesday. India will host 29 of the 49 matches across eight venues, Sri Lanka will host 12 in three venues while Bangladesh will stage eight at two grounds as well as the opening ceremony on February 18, 2011.

The 14 matches originally scheduled to take place in Pakistan have been redistributed with eight going to India, four to Sri Lanka and two to Bangladesh. The quarter-finals will be shared among the three neighbours, with Bangladesh hosting two.

The committee also decided to shift the tournament secretariat from Lahore to Mumbai. BCCI's chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty was appointed the event's managing director in place of Pakistani banker Salman Butt. The organising committee, headed by ICC vice-president Sharad Pawar, will include an operations and planning group comprising the Bangladesh Cricket Board senior vice-president Mahbubul Anam, Indian board secretary N Srinivasan, Sri Lanka's Duleep Mendis and Shetty. Haroon Lorgat, the ICC's chief executive, said IS Bindra, the special adviser to the ICC, would be a key person in the management of the World Cup.

He swept aside questions on whether Pakistan would boycott the World Cup in protest at being denied hosting rights, saying "we will cross the bridge when we come to it." The ICC had to decide on the redistribution of Pakistan's 14 matches after it removed the countryfrom the list of hosts because the "uncertain political situation" would have made it difficult to "deliver a safe, secure and successful event" in Pakistan.

Lorgat said the security concerns of the various ICC members and the players would be addressed with the formation of a special committee headed by Shashank Manohar, the BCCI chief, to oversee security details. "The security arrangements are very important and a special committee... would put together security plans for the successful conduct of the World Cup in 2011," he said.

"We are confident of organising a very successful World Cup," Lorgat said.

The subcontinent last hosted a World Cup in 1996, when India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka shared the games. The final was in Lahore, where Sri Lanka beat favourites Australia in a famous win.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Monday, April 20, 2009

An Indian as America's First Federal CTO

Indian-American Aneesh Chopra has been announced as the First Chief Technology Officer for the Obama-led government in America.

According to Oreilly Radar, Chopra will assist the US president and will be the associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology. His duties will include developing national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform the American economy and society -- by fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and change the way teachers teach and students learn.

Reportedly, Chopra is a good mix of a techy and a beurocrat, making him a 'technocrat'.

Friday, April 17, 2009

IPL Season - 2 with 15 mins more

Fans who have become accustomed to Twenty20 matches lasting just three hours are in for a surprise during the second season of the IPL - they will now last three-and-a-quarter hours. Part of the appeal of the shortest form of the game is the non-stop action but IPL games will now take longer and there will be no action at all during the added time.

The IPL are planning to market the added time as an 'innovation' by calling it a tactical 'time out' but the fact that each innings will now come to a halt for seven-and-a-half minutes after exactly 10 overs makes it neither tactical nor, indeed, practical.

"It is a move that is driven completely and totally by commercial objectives," a senior production official told. "It is designed purely to make even more money by selling airtime. Nobody could argue that this adds any cricketing value to the tournament or that it can be in the viewers' interest, either in the stadium or watching at home," the official said.

The seven-and-a-half minute break will see the stadium crowd entertained by a live band while television audiences will watch three, separate two-and-a-half minute segments, two of which will be sold commercially. The third will show the teams taking drinks and discussing 'tactics' to add some validity to the argument for the 'time out.'

While one section will be compulsory, mainstream advertising, the other will be set aside for 'special projects'. Queen Rania of Jordan, well known for her agenda of social reform and progression, will lead the way with a series of short films aimed at African children expounding the importance of education.

The IPL can justifiably claim that the project is well intentioned and for a good cause. And at approximately $1million per episode, it's also very lucrative. There are 118 two-and-half minute slots for sale.

Production teams have also been told that they need to fit 2000 seconds (around 33 minutes) of advertising into every match, a task described by a different member of the production team as "virtually impossible."

"It means taking about 40 seconds of advertising between every over and close to a minute at the fall of every wicket. It's OK in theory but it hardly ever works like that. If a team only loses two or three wickets, or the match finishes in 15 overs, we are in trouble," the same production official said.

In March, the IPL signed a fresh US $1.8 billion broadcast-rights deal for 10 years with Multi Screen Media (MSM), which operates under the Sony umbrella, and World Sports Group (WSG). The matches are being telecast by Supersport, the South African broadcaster which holds the tournament rights in that country.