IPL 2009 Live Score Card

The opening match of IPL 2009 will be played at Newlands in Cape Town on April 18, and the final will be held at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on May 24, according to a tournament schedule that has been circulated among the franchises and key BCCI officials.

The IPL is yet to officially release its schedule but according to the unofficial version, a double-header lined up on the opening day will have defending champions Rajasthan Royals taking on the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the first match, followed by the clash between last year’s runners-up Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians at the same venue.

In all, the 59 matches will be held across eight cities - Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Centurion, East London, Kimberley, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth. Kingsmead in Durban, which has a sizeable Indian-origin population, has been allocated 16 matches while Supersport Park in Centurion will host 12 ties. The Wanderers and Newlands will stage eight matches each, while St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth and Buffalo Park in East London have been given seven and four matches respectively. Two matches each have been handed to the Outsurance Oval in Bloemfontein and De Beers Oval in Kimberley.

The matches will be held at 12.30pm and 4.30pm (4.00pm and 8.00pm IST; 10.30am and 2.30pm GMT ).

The time for talk is over and so is the wait for the action in the 2009 Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament that commences here on Saturday with the Chennai Super Kings opening the proceedings against the Mumbai Indians in the first game that will start at 4 pm IST.

The Super Kings, following their up-and-down 2008 IPL campaign that ended in heartbreak with a last-ball defeat against Rajasthan Royals in the final, have strengthened their side with new signings, notably World’s leading all-rounder Andrew Flintoff.

This year, the Super Kings, led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, hope to do one better by winning the trophy, and first up for him is an engrossing battle of wits against counterpart, Sachin Tendulkar.

Chennai Super Kings:

Batting: Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden, Parthiv Patel, Murali Vijay form a trio of opening options. They will be followed by in-form Suresh Raina, Dhoni, Subramaniam Badrinath, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan. Should Mike Hussey of Australia be available, then he would further strengthen the line-up that further down includes a bunch of quality all-rounders in Flintoff (England), Albie Morkel (South Africa), Jacob Oram (New Zealand), George Bailey (Australia), Thilan Thushara (Sri Lanka). Waiting in the wings are the talented young guns Abhinav Mukund, Arun Karthik, Suresh Kumar, Srikkanth Anirudha and Napoleon Einstein

Bowling: Makhaya Ntini (South Africa), Lakshmipathy Balaji, Manpreet Gony, Sudeep Tyagi, Palani Amarnath and Joginder Sharma with Muttiah Muralitharan, World’s leading Test wicket taker, heading the spin department. The off-spin of Ravichandran Ashwin is another option so also left-arm slow bowler Shadab Jakati.

Mumbai Indians:

Batting: Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Jean-Paul Duminy (South Africa), Dwayne Bravo (West Indies), Ryan McLaren (South Africa) and Graham Napier (England), wicket-keeper Luke Ronchi, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane and Abhishek Nayar.

Bowling: Harbhajan Singh, pace king Zaheer Khan, Kylie Mills (New Zealand), Dhawal Kulkarni, Lasith Mahalinga (Sri Lanka), Mohd Ashraful (Bangladesh) and Dilhara Fernando (Sri Lanka).

2008 IPL Head to Head results

At Chennai: Super Kings 208 for 5 in 20 overs (Hayden 81, Raina 53, Dhoni 30) beat Mumbai Indians 202 for 7 in 20 overs (Robin Uthappa 43, Abhishek Nayar 45, Joginder 2 for 29, Muralitharan 2 for 40) by six runs.

At Mumbai: Chennai Super Kings 156 for 6 in 20 overs (Badrinath 53, Dhoni 43 not out, Kulkarni 3 for 33, Bravo 2 for 37) lost to Mumbai Indians 158 for 1 in 13.5 overs (Jayasuriya 114 not out) by nine wickets.