The Bangladesh team is touring Pakistan from April 8- 19. Their schedule five one day matches. It is expected that some of the Pakistan players would skip the first few IPL matches due to their hectic international schedule. There is also uncertainty that players like Mohammad Yousuf would be allowed to play in IPL or not following a case filed by the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL). They have approached the arbitration panel to block Yousuf from participating in the IPL. The verdict will come only after April 30.

Sri Lanka’s West Indian tour already started. It will conclude on April 14.  West Indian and Sri Lankan players won’t get much time to relax before they set out to play in the IPL matches. It is expected that the first few matches of IPL would not have a lot of celebrity players on the field.

Cricket enthusiasts are also eagerly waiting to know which New Zealand, England, West Indian and Australian players would be available for the last lap of IPL matches.

New Zealand is touring England from April to July. Five New Zealand players have been allowed to participate in Twenty20 games in IPL. The New Zealand Cricket Assocaition has given permission to Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, Ross Taylor and Kyle Mills to skip warm up matches during the English tour. The players, who are part of different IPL teams, at are expected to join the team only by May 1.

Meanwhile, the Australian team’s West Indian tour starts on May 16. The team will play two tests, five ODIs and one Twenty20 match against West Indies. It is now clear that Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan would not play the first two tests due to their pre occupation with the Indian Premier League. These players have already signed with different IPL teams.

Cricket lovers world over are worried over the impact of the IPL on the international cricket. There are also reports that some of the Australian cricket stars participating in IPL matches may miss the training camp before their tour in West Indies.

Many small cricket playing nations such as Zimbabwe, West Indies and New Zealand are very much disappointed over the present schedule of IPL as they fear big revenue losses. Their cricket season coincides with the IPL tournament and the cricket boards in these countries are worried that their income would dwindle this season.

According to the contract, IPL must respect international schedules and not take on players that do not have board clearance to take part in IPL.

This would include players who have been retired for up to two years, said a report in The Australian.

FICA chief executive Tim May has said that ICC’s attempts to prevent players from retiring to take part in the IPL could lead to legal action.

The ICC has said that the concept of nation-versus-nation cricket was the “lifeblood” of the game and must always be given the highest possible priority. The statement has come in the wake of the impending Australian tour to the West Indies.

Three West Indies players Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan may not be able to play in most of the test series because of their IPL commitments.

The West Indies cricket chief had only recently expressed his fears that the biggets threat to Australia’s tour of West Indies would be the IPL in April 2008.

Skipper Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan may take part in IPL skipping Australia’s tour of West Indies, media reports said. IPL has hinted at plans to include teams based overseas also in the Twenty20 tournament in later stages. This would mean there would be more overseas signings. Currently only four overseas players can be a part of the playing eleven in Indian Premier League matches.

At the function, Shah Rukh launched the official team logo of “Kolkata Knight Raiders” and also launched “Hoog Lee”, its mascot, which is an animated picture of a tiger. A royal Bengal tiger. The main aim was to focus on nurturing the youth talent in the country which is abundant and to go for a team, which is youth-centric, he said.

The team jersey of Kolkata Knight Raiders was designed by Manish Malhotra and will have gold and black colour combination. Black colour in the jersey represents the goddess kali, a favourite goddess of Bengalis and the gold colour represents the team’s hunger for gold.

Here is an excerpt from The Telegraph:

Shah Rukh handed the golden viking helmets to coach John Buchanan, captain-icon Sourav Ganguly and CAB president Prasun Mukherjee, declaring war against the other seven teams. The first match will be played in Bangalore on April 18, pitting the Knight Riders against Bangalore’s Royal Challengers.

The helmet — the Knight Riders’ logo — is in black and gold, in keeping with the battle theme. Black is “the spirit of Ma Kali as the destroyer of demons” while gold signifies “the team’s aim to win the battle of life”.

The team mascot is a Royal Bengal Tiger called Hoog Lee —“better than any Lee in the world” — a play on Hooghly and googly.

The players’ kits for the Kolkata Knight Raiders would be sponsored by the international apparel brand Reebok.

The function also saw the launch of Kolkata IPL team’s theme song, “Korbo, Lorbo, Jitbo” (We will do it, we will fight it, we will win it), composed by music director duo Vishal and Shekhar. Shah Rukh said, “We have a lot of plans for cricket and entertainment as well during the tournament but those would be disclosed when they happen. We will try to bring lots of things on stage without distracting the game.”

Sourav Ganguly’s team includes Shoaib Akhtar, Ricky Ponting, Chris Gayle, David Hussey, Brendon Mccullum, Umar Gul, Tatenda Taibu, Ajit Agarkar, Ishant Sharma, Murali Kartik, Akash Chopra, Lakshmi Ratan Shukla, R Saha, Sourashish Lahiri and Rohan Banerjee.

Now the West Indies Cricket Board president Julian Hunte has expressed concern over the impact of IPL and ICL on cricket in the Caribbean.

The concerns mainly stem from the fact that the IPL and ICL schedules will clash with West Indies tour of Australia and Sri Lanka.

Chris Gayle (Kolkata Knight Riders, $800,000), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (Bangalore, $200,000) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (Mohali $225,000) have signed up for IPL.
It is exactly due to this that ICC is speaking about allowing a window for IPL schedule, though it remains to be seen how this works out.

Julian Huntye was blunt when he said IPL is the second biggest threat for West Indian cricket. The first, he said, was an alleged move to first tier of Test playing countries to top seven, which would leave West Indies with just Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to play.