MUMBAI: Youth channel UTV Bindass is launching in February-end a cricket reality show, Cricket Champs.

The show, produced in association with Indraprastha All India Sports Foundation (IAISF), seeks to identify the budding cricket talent from across thecountry; it will provide an opportunity for potential young cricketers.

UTV Bindass business head Keith Alphonso said, ?We at Bindass are known to create path breaking programming and are happy to present to our viewers an exciting mix of sports and reality with Cricket Champs. The concept of the show has a purposive goal aimed at giving youth a platform to showcase their sporting talent. The show will bring alive the spirit of the youth and help promote the budding sports talent in India.?

Cricket Champ is being powered by Bhushan Pharmaceuticals. The sponsors include Akai Mobiles, nexGTv, Koovs.com, Puri Group and Livemedia. Reebok is the Fitness Partners while Aircel has come on board as the Telecom Partners. Pioneer Publicity India is the outdoor partner for the show.

IAISF chairperson Rohini Rajdev added, ?IAISF aims at bringing talent from hinterland to mainland. As an NGO, we wish to create opportunities for those, who have a dream to become not only the Indian cricketer but also the Indian captain, the cricket champ, however, they do not have any opportunity and resources to fulfill their dreams. This show will help them in coming up and showing their talent. The entire country would horn their skill and abilities and give them opportunity to play higher league form?.

Cricket Champs will hold auditions covering 300 schools, colleges and coaching centres across India with cricket representatives like Irfan and Yusuf Pathan, Keerti Aazad, Piyush Chawla. The cricketers will be chosen in two categories: Under 16 and under 22. The West and East zone includes Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bhubaneswar; North zone covers Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, UP; and south zone has Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Once through with the auditions, the selected participants will be judged on their performances.

UTV Bindass viewers can also participate through voting and the contestant who receives the maximum votes umulatively will be declared as the ?Cricket Champ?.

The winner of the show will win a cash prize of Rs 1 million and the top 10 players will get an opportunity to be a part of the IPL coaching, where they will be coached by some of the renowned names in cricket.

TThe aspiring cricketers can apply through application forms available with the coaches in their respective cities across the country. The form can also be downloaded from the IAISF website www.indraprasthasportsfd.com.

MUMBAI: The fifth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will commence in Chennai on 4 April 2012.

The season will revert to the ?home and away? format, with each of the nine franchises playing 16 matches. There will be four Play-off matches - a total of 76 matches.

The Play-off matches will be held in Bangalore and Chennai, with the final to be played in Chennai on Sunday, 27 May 2012.

The 2012 Player Auction for the players who used to play for the Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise will be held in late January / early February. Each franchise will have an auction purse of $2 million to spend on players in the 2012 auction.

For the 2012, 2013 seasons, the maximum squad size will be increased to 33, and the cap on the number of overseas players in the squad increased to 11.

The regulation that only four overseas players may be in the playing XI is unchanged. The trading window will open on 15 December 2011 and run through to 20 January 2012. There will be a short second trading window after the Player Auction.

The trading regulations will be as per previous seasons. There will be no financial cap on trading. Franchises can only add to their squad, by way of trading, a maximum of four players who were bought in the 2011 Auction, and they must stay within the squad composition regulations at all times.

MUMBAI: Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals has announced Rahul Dravid as the captain of the squad, taking over from Shane Warne.

Dravid will be involved in all aspects of cricket strategy and will guide the youth and talent development initiatives of the Rajasthan Royals. The DLF Indian Premier League is scheduled to begin in Chennai on 4 April 2012.

The Rajasthan Royals captain is incidentally also being bestowed with the "Polly Umrigar Award for India?s best cricketer of 2010-11 season" by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The 38-year-old former Indian captain had a great year in which he scored 1,258 runs in 15 Tests, which included six centuries.

Dravid said, "I am honoured to lead the Rajasthan Royals. I hope to live up to the confidence shown in me by the franchise and give our fans an exciting season of cricket. I look forward to the valuable inputs from my team mates who are already leading their national sides and clubs. My aim will be to get the best out of a very talented squad and invoke the same team spirit that won the franchise the first IPL and has been a hallmark of the Rajasthan Royals ever since. I am confident that by doing so we will have a great chance of doing well in the tournament."

Rajasthan Royals CEO Raghu Iyer said, "We are delighted to announce Dravid as Captain. He epitomises all the values of the Royals franchise with his true grit and never say die attitude. We hope all Royals fans will get behind Rahul and the team in the upcoming seasons."

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a notice to cricket?s richest board, the BCCI, to explain transfer and routing of funds to the tune of Rs 16 billion in the conduct of the second season of Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

The notice has been issued under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema) regarding transfer of funds for the second edition of the IPL, which was conducted in South Africa in 2009.

Besides the BCCI, the notice has also been marked for former IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi, asking for an explanation of the transfer of these funds.