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.

MUMBAI: After the Indian Premier League (IPL) Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan has turned his attention to motorsports.

Along with the Kolkata knight Riders (KKR) partners, the Mehta Group, he has become the Mumbai franchise owners for the all new motorsport racing league i1 Super Series, an initiative by Machdar Motorsports. SRK?s involvement with the i1 Super Series is a boost for the championship that will commence early January 2012.

The i1 Super Series, charted on the city based franchisee format, will have nine teams representing nine different cities from across the country with each team having an Indian and an International driver per car marking a new dimension to Indian Motorsports.

Machdar Motorsports director Anjana Reddy said, "We are absolutely thrilled to welcome the Indian icon and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to the i1 Super Series as the franchisee holder for Mumbai. This announcement marks a momentous occasion for motorsports in India with one of the biggest stars in the country aligning with the highly anticipated i1 Super Series. Shah Rukh loved the concept and our vision to establish the i1 Super Series as a landmark in Indian Motorsports. i1 Super Series is going through a very exciting phase, the countdown to our first race has begun and we have lots more exciting news coming up shortly."

Khan is convinced that the series will be one of the biggest sporting events in the country. "The i1 Super Series is a very interesting concept as it gets racing drivers from across the globe to partner with young Indian talent. After the inaugural Indian GP it is clear that motorsports is hugely popular in India and I strongly believe that this series will be a success with its one-of-a-kind concept. I have always tried to develop sports in the country in any way possible and we have recently taken a very professional approach to expanding our interests in various sports entertainment categories. The concept is similar to the IPL and I am confident that in the years to come this can become one of the biggest motorsport events in the world," Khan said.

KKR CEO, MD Venky Mysore added, "This initiative is consistent with the vision of our shareholders to expand our business in the area of sports entertainment."

MUMBAI: The fifth season of the Indian premier League is scheduled to last from 4 April to 27 May, the IPL Governing Council announced today.

The tournament will have nine teams, as IPL has scrapped the Kochi franchise due to the breach of contractual obligations.

"The dates of the DLF IPL 2012 were confirmed. The tournament will begin in Chennai on 4 April, 2012 and end on 27 May, 2012. An opening ceremony will be held in Chennai on 3 April, a day before the inaugural game," BCCI said in a release. 

The IPL Governing Council, which met in Hyderabad today with the new chief Rajiv Shukla, however, did not discuss on the player regulation, including participation of Pakistani players, and trading modalities of the auction.

?The player regulation and trading modalities will be discussed at the next meeting of the governing council," the statement said.

The governing council has also asked the management team to come back with options for the format and structure for the 2012 season of the tournament.

The governing council approved various operational items for the forthcoming IPL season.