Indian Premier League Cricket

The Indian Premier League is the first billion dollar sporting league in Asia. The IPL is a brain child of BCCI and will feature eight city cricket teams pitted against each other.

Elite cricketers from around the world will be playing along with local talent in 59 exciting matches in the Twenty20 format. The newest form of cricket that has caught the imagination of audiences around then world including China.

The telecast rights for the matches alone has brought in more than a billion dollars to the IPL. The rights to then individual teams were bought by business houses, film stars and industrialists. That has netted another $700 million dollars.

The Indian Premier League for cricket is based on the lines of English Premier League for football. The fan base for football in England is around 18 million. Cricket mad India will have fan base that will be several hundred millions in size drawing from its population of over a billion.

Add to this the overseas Indians who follow the game with the same passion as their brethren back home. This affluent audience runs into several millions. Now add the several million converts from the countries across Asia, Europe and America and you have a bonanza waiting to happen.

These are exciting times for cricket and cricketers. Board of Control for cricket in India has hit a jackpot in terms of Indian premeir league or IPL in short. Cricket will forever be changed.

The owners all savvy business people are only set to take this game to higher levels.

IPL's complete schedule:

April 18: Bangalore v Kolkata at Bangalore.

April 19: Mohali v Chennai at Mohali and Delhi v Jaipur at Delhi.

April 20: Mumbai v Bangalore at Mumbai and Kolkata v Hyderabad at Kolkata.

April 21: Jaipur v Mohali at Jaipur.
IPL's complete schedule:

April 18: Bangalore v Kolkata at Bangalore.

April 19: Mohali v Chennai at Mohali and Delhi v Jaipur at Delhi.

April 20: Mumbai v Bangalore at Mumbai and Kolkata v Hyderabad at Kolkata.

April 21: Jaipur v Mohali at Jaipur.

April 22: Hyderabad v Delhi at Hyderabad.

April 23: Chennai v Mumbai at Chennai.

April 24: Hyderabad v Jaipur at Hyderabad.

April 25: Mohali v Mumbai at Mohali.

April 26: Bangalore v Jaipur at Bangalore; Chennai v Kolkata at Chennai.

April 27: Mumbai v Hyderabad at Mumbai; Mohali v Delhi at Mohali.

April 28: Bangalore v Chennai at Bangalore.

April 29: Kolkata v Mumbai at Kolkata.

April 30: Delhi v Bangalore at Delhi.

May 1: Hyderabad v Mohali at Hyderabad; Jaipur v Kolkata at Jaipur.
May 2: Chennai v Delhi at Chennai.

May 3: Hyderabad at Bangalore at Hyderabad; Mohali v Kolkata at Mohali.
May 4: Mumbai v Delhi at Mumbai; Jaipur v Chennai at Jaipur.
May 5: Bangalore v Mohali at Bangalore.
May 6: Chennai v Hyderabad at Chennai.
May 7: Mumbai v Jaipur at Mumbai.
May 8: Delhi v Chennai at Delhi; Kolkata v Bangalore at Kolkata.

May 9: Jaipur v Hyderabad at Jaipur.

May 10: Bangalore v Mumbai at Bangalore; Chennai v Mohali at Chennai.

May 11: Hyderabad v Kolkata at Hyderabad; Jaipur v Delhi at Jaipur.

May 12: Mohali v Bangalore at Mohali.

May 13: Kolkata v Delhi at Kolkata.

May 14: Mumbai v Chennai at Mumbai; Mohali v Jaipur at Mohali.

May 15: Delhi v Hyderabad at Delhi.

May 16: Mumbai v Kolkata at Mumbai.

May 17: Delhi v Mohali at Delhi; Jaipur v Bangalore at Jaipur.

May 18: Hyderabad v Mumbai at Hyderabad; Kolkata v Chenna at Kolkata.

May 19: Bangalore v Delhi at Bangalore.

May 20: Kolkata v Jaipur at Kolkata.

May 21: Mumbai v Mohali at Mumbai; Chennai v Bangalore at Chennai.

May 22: Delhi v Kolkata at Delhi.

May 23: Mohali v Hyderabad at Mohali.

May 24: Delhi v Mumbai at Delhi; Chennai v Jaipur at Chennai.
May 25: Bangalore v Hyderabad at Bangalore; Kolkata v Mohali at Kolkata.
May 26: Jaipur v Mumbai at Jaipur.
May 27: Hyderabad v Chennai at Hyderabad.
May 28 and 29: Rest days.
May 30: First semi-final at Mumbai.
May 31: Second semi-final at Mumbai.

June 1: Final at Mumbai.