After Indian Premier League success, DJ Warner wants to shake up World T20

He is the team’s official DJ playing a selection of rock, pop, jazz and blues in the team bus; he’s also a jester of sorts, keeping the team in good spirits. Apart from that, he beats Glenn McGrath and Daniel Vettori in card games every night here, tees off with conviction and surfs as well as any Australian on the beach.

But it’s when David Warner walks in to bat that the buzz really catches on in the Delhi Daredevils dug-out.

The diminutive Australian left-hander has drawn a lot of attention since his T20 debut for Australia, and has also impressed since filling in for the injured Virender Sehwag at the top of the order in the IPL.

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Rupees 450 per day, 4 to a room, players cook to cut hotel bill: National Football in Indian Premier League season

Even as the country struggles to recover from the Indian Premier League hangover, and before players begin to wonder if they are eligible for a share of Texan billionaire Allen Stanford’s English pie, here’s a slice of reality from Indian sports.

The Santosh Trophy, the country’s premier national-level football tournament which ended in Srinagar today with Punjab beating Services 1-0 in the final, was replete with battles of the football kind but it was not just the final score that had players worried.

The daily allowance handed out by the All India Football Federation was Rs 450 a day per player, including boarding and lodging. And teams, obviously, had to do things the hard way.

The Karnataka team checked into the Saleem Guest House on Dal Gate where each room is priced Rs 1,000 per day. “We had to take five rooms for the whole squad, four players to one room,” said Karnataka manager Aslam Khan. “If the boys want to get their laundry done in the hotel, they have to pay for it themselves. Even then the costs go over and above what we are given by the AIFF.” The state association provided each player an additional Rs 100 a day as pocket money.

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IPL windfall? Taxman knocks cricket board's door for service tax

To examine service tax liability, the Central Board of Excise and Customs has asked its regional commissioners to examine all contracts the BCCI has entered on or behalf of the Indian Premier League with all corporate bodies who have either bid for teams or are providing services from entertainment to broadcasting to advertising.

A fortnight ago, Director General of Service Tax (DGST) told field functionaries to collate findings on "relevant facts, the views regarding taxability of such activities, the amount of service tax involved, the amount of tax dues collected, if any" to be reported to him.

Under the franchise model, a sponsor owmng a team pays a stipulated fee to the BCCI to get ownership. The franchisees have to pay 10 percent of the bid amount every year to BCCI, as a franchisee fee.

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Harbhajan can now only watch IPL

The Indian Premier League (IPL) today came down heavily on star spinner Harbhajan Singh, banning him from the remaining matches of the Twenty20 tournament this season after video footage proved he was guilty of slapping Sreesanth without provocation last Friday.

Harbhajan will lose 100 per cent of his fee for the 11 or 13 matches (if the side makes it to the semi-final and final) that his team will go on to play in the tournament. He stands to lose Rs 3 crore.

The slapping incident occurred after the Mumbai Indians, which was led by Harbhajan in the match, lost to Kings XI Punjab for whom Sreesanth plays.

Match referee Farokh Engineer, who conducted the disciplinary hearing, wrote in his report: "It is a condemnable act and against the ICC's Rule 4.2 under players' code of conduct." The report was based on a 10-minute uninterrupted feed provided by TWI, broadcasters of the tournament. Engineer watched the footage and concluded that Harbhajan had not been provoked.

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India spin a win in Kanpur, clear Test before IPL carnival

Like a commuter on a rush hour Virar Fast, Virender Sehwag is hanging on to the SUV as Team India gets ready to start yet another victory lap. Coach Gary Kirsten smiles as he watches his team test the capacity of the vehicle, the prize for the man of the series, that has the stand-in skipper and the unofficial team driver for all such occasions at the wheel.

Sehwag shouts in an exaggerated accent, "Gary, come along." The coach doesn't oblige as he has a television interview to give. But watching the new coach in a sea of happy faces around him, it was clear that the Kanpur trip has helped the coach hop onto Indian cricket's bandwagon that has been on a roll for some time now. Dhoni spoke about Kirsten's rapport with the team. "Of course, it is too early, but I think he is hitting the right areas," he says.

It isn't just the coach who's hitting the right areas, but the entire team did that here after being totally off-target during the three-day loss at Motera. They travelled to Kanpur with a lot on their minds. Sunil Gavaskar had spoken about IPL distractions during the Test series and asked Kirsten to crack the whip. Injury had hit the bowling department hard. There was a question mark over Ishant Sharma, who was retuming after an injury.

Intrigue was speculated as shorter-version skipper Dhoni replaced injured Test captain Anil Kumble. The moming that had started with television visuals showing Kumble leaving the team hotel with interpretations of a senior-junior divide in team ended with a number of happy family frames around.

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A 50-min break from IPL: Chak De Ireland film

Trent Johnston took an indefinite break from cricket last month. This week, Dave Langford Smith hung up his boots for good. In this Twenty20 season, fans may have forgotten that these amateurs, who have silently moved back to their 9-to-5 jobs while the rest of the world is waiting for the IPL, were Ireland's heroes at the World Cup last year.

But thanks to first-time filmmaker Paul Davey's documentary Breaking Boundaries, the big high of Ireland's part-timers has been chronicled forever.

Spellbinding, says the Sunday Independent; "an absolute triumph...a true emotional journey with the band of brothers behind one of Ireland's greatest and most unlikely sporting success stories," raves The Mirror; another critic calls it "David swing bowling at Goliath."

The 50-minute film opens with a postman, a teacher, a truck driver, a marketing agent, an electrician and a farmer at their workplaces before the World Cup. It ends with the same men returning from the Caribbean as national heroes. It showcases some rare moments when cricket rediscovered its innocence - Ireland's wins over Pakistan and Bangladesh, a tie against Zimbabwe, a Super Eights spot and finally one-day status.

It's an against-the-odds-underdog-triumph sports flick. But unlike commercial movies of the same theme, there is no buzzer beating three-pointer or a last-ball six as Davey's unobtrusive fly-on the-wall camera roams cinema verite style into the dressing room, gets a ride on the team bus, chases players during victory laps, gets drenched in champagne and captures more than one teary eye.

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