2008 Indian Premier League

The 2008 Indian Premier League season was the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League, established by the BCCI in 2007. The season commenced on 18 April 2008 with the final match was held on 1 June 2008. The competition started with a double round robin league stage, in which each of the 8 teams played a home match and an away match against every other team. These matches were followed by two semi-finals and a final.

In a match which went down to the last ball, Rajasthan Royals defeated Chennai Super Kings in the final to win the title, with Yusuf Pathan named the player of the match in the Finals and Shane Watson adjudged the player of the tournament. Sohail Tanvir won the purple cap for being the top wicket-taking bowler while Shaun Marsh won the orange cap for leading run-scorer in the tournament. Shreevats Goswami was awarded the best under-19 player award and the special award for Fair Play was won by the CSK.

Auctions and personnel signings

The auctions for team ownership was held on January 24, 2008. Mumbai was the most expensive team, costing over US$111.9 million. For the inaugural IPL season, each team had a salary cap of US$5 million (Rs. 20 crore approx.). Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag were classified as icon players. They played for the franchises representing their home towns and hence did not enter the auction. Few players were classified as marquee players and the teams which lost out on icon players were allowed one extra marquee player to be selected in the auction. The first auction was conducted on 20 February 2008 with Mahendra Singh Dhoni winning the highest bid of US$1.5 million. Andrew Symonds was the most costly foreign player. A further second auction was held for few foreign players signed. Teams also signed players on individual basis.

Venues

Chennai	Mumbai	Mohali
M. A. Chidambaram Stadium Capacity: 50,000	Wankhede Stadium Capacity: 45,000	PCA Stadium Capacity: 30,000
Kolkata	Bangalore	Navi Mumbai
Eden Gardens Capacity:80,000	M. Chinnaswamy Stadium Capacity:55,000	DY Patil Stadium Capacity: 55,000
Hyderabad	Delhi	Jaipur
Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium Capacity:55,000	Feroz Shah Kotla Capacity:48,000	Sawai Mansingh Stadium Capacity:30,000
Chennai Mumbai Mohali Kolkata Bangalore Navi Mumbai Hyderabad Delhi Jaipur

Rules and regulations

Points in the group stage were awarded as follows:

Points

Results	Points
Win	2 points
No result	1 point
Loss	0 points

In the event of tied scores after both teams have faced their quota of overs, a bowl-out will determine the winner, even in the group stage.

In the group stage, teams will be ranked on the following criteria:

1. Higher number of points
2. If equal, higher number of wins
3. If still equal, net run rate
4. If still equal, lower bowling strike rate
5. If still equal, result of head-to-head meeting.

Teams and standings

Points table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	NR	Pts	NRR
1	Rajasthan Royals (C)	14	11	3	0	22	0.632
2	Kings XI Punjab	14	10	4	0	20	0.509
3	Chennai Super Kings (R)	14	8	6	0	16	−0.192
4	Delhi Daredevils	14	7	6	1	15	0.342
5	Mumbai Indians	14	7	7	0	14	0.570
6	Kolkata Knight Riders	14	6	7	1	13	−0.147
7	Royal Challengers Bangalore	14	4	10	0	8	−1.160
8	Deccan Chargers	14	2	12	0	4	−0.467

(C) = Eventual champion; (R) = Runner-up.

Match summary

League stage

Matches

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• Mumbai Indians 5 run outs in their innings is a record in the IPL^[11]

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Playoffs

Knockout stage

Semi-finals

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Final

Statistics

Most runs

Player	Team	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS
Shaun Marsh	Kings XI Punjab	11	11	616	115
Gautam Gambhir	Delhi Daredevils	14	14	534	86
Sanath Jayasuriya	Mumbai Indians	14	14	514	114 not out
Shane Watson	Rajasthan Royals	15	15	472	76 not out
Graeme Smith	Rajasthan Royals	11	11	441	91

  The tournament’s leading scorer wore an orange cap when fielding.^[12]

Full Table on Cricinfo

Most wickets

Player	Team	Mat	Wkts	BBI
Sohail Tanvir	Rajasthan Royals	11	22	6/14
Sreesanth	Kings XI Punjab	15	19	3/29
Shane Warne	Rajasthan Royals	15	18	3/19
Shane Watson	Rajasthan Royals	15	17	3/10
Manpreet Gony	Chennai Super Kings	16	17	3/25

  The tournament’s leading wicket taker wore a purple cap when fielding.

Full Table on cricinfo

Note: Economy rate acts as a tie-breaker if players are level for most wickets.

Controversies

Cheerleaders

The IPL has been criticised by a few politicians and feminists for bringing in foreign cheerleaders, which is seen by many to not be in the traditional spirit of the game, as well as being against some Indian sensibilities. Two cheerleaders from London were asked to leave the ground at Mohali “because of the colour of their skin” by Wizcraft International Entertainment, which handles the team Kings XI Punjab. Ellesha Newton and Sherinne Anderson, both from London and of African ancestry were allegedly barred from entering the stadium by employees of Wizcraft International Entertainment on the pretext that “people don’t like dark girls here”. Both the girls also allege that an employee referred to them with the racial slur ″nigger″.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said a probe would be initiated by the IPL only if the two women officially complain to IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

BCCI and IPL officials are surprised that the two cheerleaders did not complain about the alleged racist behaviour while they were in India and spoke about it only after they returned to London.

“We have not received any complaint from any cheerleaders that they were asked to leave by the Mohali-based Kings XI Punjab franchise recently because of the colour of their skin,” BCCI joint secretary M.P. Pandove said in Mohali

Sreesanth – Harbhajan Singh altercation

On 25 April 2008, following the Kings XI Punjab’s victory over the Mumbai Indians at Mohali, Punjab player Sreesanth was slapped under his eye by Harbhajan Singh, the in-stand captain of Mumbai. The incident came to light as Sreesanth was caught by TV cameras sobbing inconsolably on the field before the presentation ceremony. Sreesanth had since downplayed the incident saying he had no complaints against Harbhajan who was “like an elder brother” to him. Harbhajan’s team had lost their third consecutive match when he apparently reacted violently to Sreesanth’s approaching him and reportedly saying “hard luck”. The footage of the slap has not yet been released for public viewing. The BCCI launched an investigation into the incident and decided to ban Harbhajan for the remainder 11 matches of the Twenty20 tournament