About the IPL.

The Indian Premier League, created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and sanctioned by the International Cricket Council, is a Twenty20 cricket competition.

The league is scheduled to start in April 2008 and will last for 44 days, involving 59 matches. The prize money for the league will be around Rs 13 crore (US $3million).

Each team will have a pool of 16 players, with a maximum of eight foreign players and a minimum of four under-22 players. Additionally, at least four players must be from the catchment area where the team is based.

The governing council consists of Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi, Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi and Ravi Shastri, Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, Inderjit Singh Bindra and Arun Jaitley.

Although it is going to be a franchise system, some foreign players have already been contracted by the BCCI to play in the IPL.

Each team will play the other 7 teams home and away, the top four teams at the end of the group stages will proceed through to the semi finals.