cricket20 :: Indian Premier League - Bangalore Royal Challengers

Bangalore Royal Challengers

Owner	Vijay Mallya	Founded	2008
CEO	Charu Sharma	Head Coach	Venkatesh Prasad
President	TBA	Captian	Rahul Dravid
Home Ground	M. Chinnaswamy Stadium	Icon Player	Rahul Dravid
Capacity	55,000	Team Value	US$111.6 million

Team Profile

Bangalore Royal Challengers is the team that is going to represent the city of Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, the inaugural Twenty20 cricket tournament to be held in India. The team is owned by the liquor magnate Vijay Mallya, the chairman of UB Group.

Charu Sharma is the CEO of the team and Rahul Dravid, the captain of the team is the Icon Player. Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, has also been signed as a member of the management team. Venkatesh Prasad, the former Indian fast bowler and the present bowling coach of India has been declared the coach for the team

Franchise history

Indian Premier League is a cricket tournament being organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI - the governing body for cricket in India), and backed by the International Cricket Council. For the inaugural tournament to be held in Apr-Jun 2008, the BCCI had finalised a list of 8 teams who will be participating in the tournament.

The teams representing 8 different cities of India, including Bangalore, were put up on auction in Mumbai on 20 February 2008 and the Bangalore team was won by Vijay Mallya, who paid US$111.6 million for it. This was the second highest bid for a team in the IPL, next only to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries' bid of $111.9 million for the Mumbai team.

Indian film stars Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Upendra and Ramya were signed as the brand ambassadors of the franchise.

Etymology

Vijay Mallya wanted to associate one of his top-selling liquor brands, either 'No. 1 McDowell's' or 'Royal Challenge' with the team. Ultimately, 'Royal Challenge' was chosen, and hence the team was given the name 'Bangalore Royal Challengers'. The jersey colours of the team are red and golden yellow, and the logo consists of the RC emblem with 'Bangalore Royal Challengers' in standard format.

Players

The players in the team (except for Rahul Dravid, who was the Icon Player), were selected in an auction conducted by BCCI on 20 February 2008. South Africa's Jacques Kallis at $900,000 became the costliest player to be selected to play for the Royal Challengers. This meant that Rahul Dravid, being the Icon Player would be paid $1,035,000 (15% more than the highest bid player in the team).

Other players selected included the Indian Test cricket captain Anil Kumble along with his team-mates Praveen Kumar and Zaheer Khan, West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Aussies Nathan Bracken and Cameron White, South Africa's Mark Boucher (Wicket Keeper) and Dale Steyn.

Current squad

Name	Age	Nationality	Playing role	Bidding Price
Rahul Dravid	35	India	Batsman	Icon Player
Jacques Kallis	32	South Africa	All Rounder	US$ 900,000
Anil Kumble	37	India	Bowler	US$ 500,000
Cameron White	24	Australia	Batsman	US$ 500,000
Zaheer Khan	29	India	Batsman	US$ 450,000
Mark Boucher	31	South Africa	Batsman / WK	US$ 450,000
Nathan Bracken	30	Australia	Bowler	US$ 325,000
Dale Steyn	24	South Africa	Bowler	US$ 325,000
Shivnarine Chanderpaul	33	West Indies	Batsman	US$ 200,000
Wasim Jaffer	30	India	Bowler	US$ 100,000
Vinay Kumar	21	India	Batsman	None
Jagadeesh Arunkumar	30	India	Bowler	None
Balachandra Akhil	30	India	Batsman	None
KP Appanna	19	India	Bowler	None
Devraj Patil	23	India	Batsman	None
Sunil Joshi	37	India	All Rounder	None
Bharat Chipli	25	India	Bowler	None
Abdur Razzak	25	Bangladesh	Bowler	None
Shreevats Goswami	18	India	Batsman / WK	None
Virat Kohli	19	India	Batsman	None
Praveen Kumar	21	India	Bowler	None
Misbah-ul-Haq	33	Pakistan	Batsman	None
Ross Taylor	24	New Zealand	Batsman	None

Related IPL Links

Indian Premier League