IPL is now available for free!!!

Google has just made an agreement to stream the third IPL via Youtube, live. This contract runs over two years, so should encompass the next IPL as well.

From a personal perspective, this is the best news i’ve heard thus far this year. My country of residence, Scotland, have roughly one game of terrestrial TV cricket a decade, and it usually involves them getting wiped by a far better team (Aussies, England etc). All other cricket costs...

Andrew Symonds may have had his Cricket Australia contract handed to Shaun Tait, but he looks set to earn more than its value as a Twenty20 freelancer.

Symonds, of course, is already a key part of the Deccan Chargers squad in the IPL, and the Highveld Lions are also reportedly interested in signing him up for the South African competition. If he was to take part in four domestic competitions (the Big Bash in Australia, the South African competition, the IPL and English cricket's revamped...

(Originally posted at The Match Referee)

It's official - I have diagnosed myself as suffering from strategic time-out withdrawal syndrome. I would never have thought it true, but it is now fact that our hero Lalit Modi's unashamed attempt at milking yet more dollars out of his IPL baby has forever impacted my T20 spectatorship. After sitting through six weeks of meaningless 7.5 minute breaks at the end of the first 10 overs, I now find myself unable to handle a game of T20 cricket where...

The cricketing landscape has changed beyond recognition since India beat Pakistan by 5 runs to win the first World Twenty20. The ICL and IPL have brought Twenty20 a new level of glamour and money, the political situation in the subcontinent has worsened to a dramatic degree, and the world economy has taken a nosedive.

The organiser's of this year's tournament will be hoping that the global appetite for Twenty20 cricket is undiminished by all of these developments, but the disappointing ticket sales for this year's domestic Twenty20 cup in England...

The IPL 2009 has been a huge success but not quite in the way Lalit Modi or most of the mainstream stakeholders and media would see it. It has been a success because it has brokered a completely unexpected peace between two contradictory parties.

A peaceful co-existence between pure, classical, competitive cricket, and the brash, crass, commercial side of the game was never thought possible - it was always going to be survival of one of the two. Since T20 brought in the money, we had...