Shah Rukh began with a light hearted remark about the weather saying that the day before he had asked his wife (Gauri) not to bring warm clothes but that it was cold again that day! He thanked Cricket South Africa for their welcome and their support to the IPL. SRK promised good cricket on behalf of all the teams, those present as well as those who were not. He explained the concept of Ms Bollywood and how IPL was not just about cricket; that it was also about the whole entertainment package.

SRK spoke about how the movie stars connected with the IPL looked upon the IPL as a business opportunity and how every movie star had their own vision for the IPL and how it was the desire of all the people involved to do something for the sport of cricket.

Thereafter Modi took over and spoke about strict penalties for slow over rates. Penalties began at $20,000 and went all the way up till a match ban for the captain and fines up to $350,000. This will however be balanced out by a break of 5 minutes every 10 overs which is a new innovation for the game. At this point of course Shastri had to point out the pertinent fact that this was not going to be to the detriment of the KKR team because of the fact that they had 4 captains to be getting on with!

Cricket360’s Sharad Chikara then had a question for Shah Rukh Khan and asked him, “the 56 women promotion, Shah Rukh, do you think you're being partial?”

“You want more girls?” was Khan’s tongue in cheek reply. “No in terms of the opposite sex,” said Sharad. “You want boys also?” asked Khan amidst titters and chuckles from all present. “Do you think you're being fair?” Sharad insisted and Khan took the easy way out: “All the sexual decisions, Lalit takes,” Khan said outrageously to even more laughter!

Thereafter SRK fielded one more question about pricing and ticketing of the games; that there was the striving to make the matches affordable for everyone, even in India, by putting the tickets within reach of people. The idea of the IPL was to make it accessible for all and to make the ticketing so priced as to be within reach.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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