The 2008 Indian Premier League season was the inaugural season of the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

, established by the

BCCI The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the worl ...

in 2007. The season commenced on 18 April 2008 with the final match was held on 1 June 2008. The competition started with a

double round robin A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

league stage, in which each of the 8 teams played a home match and an away match against every other team. These matches were followed by two semi-finals and a final. The tagline was, ''Tu laga dum!(Put all your power!).'' In a match which went down to the last ball,

Rajasthan Royals Rajasthan Royals (often abbreviated as RR) are a franchise cricket team based in Jaipur, Rajasthan, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Founded in 2008 as one of the initial eight IPL franchises, the team is based at the Sawai Ma ...

defeated

Chennai Super Kings Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 2008, the team plays its home matches at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The team is owned by India ...

in the final to win the title, with

Yusuf Pathan Yusuf Pathan (born 17 November 1982) is an Indian former cricketer. Pathan made his debut in first-class cricket in 2001/02. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm off-break bowler. His younger brother, Irfan Pathan was also an Indian c ...

named the player of the match in the Finals and

Shane Watson Shane Robert Watson (born 17 June 1981) is an Australian former cricketer, and occasional captain in all formats, who has played for Australia's national cricket team. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-handed fast-medium swing bowler w ...

adjudged the player of the tournament.

Sohail Tanvir Sohail Tanvir ( ur, ; born 12 December 1984) is a Pakistani cricketer, who has gained considerable international repute for his unorthodox left arm bowling action and particularly for the success it has gained him in the Twenty20 format of the ...

won the purple cap for being the top wicket-taking bowler while

Shaun Marsh Shaun Edward Marsh (born 9 July 1983) is an Australian cricketer who plays for the Western Australia cricket team in Australian domestic cricket and has represented Australia in all three formats. Nicknamed SOS ("Son of Swampy"), he is a left-h ...

won the orange cap for leading run-scorer in the tournament. Shreevats Goswami was awarded the best under-19 player award and the special award for Fair Play was won by the CSK.

Auctions and personnel signings

The auctions for team ownership was held on January 24, 2008.

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

was the most expensive team, costing over 111.9 million. For the inaugural IPL season, each team had a salary cap of US$5 million (Rs. 20 crore approx.).

Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (; ; born 24 April 1973) is an Indian former international cricketer who captained the Indian national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the all time highest run-sco ...

Sourav Ganguly Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (; natively spelled as Gangopadhyay; born 8 July 1972), affectionately known as Dada (meaning ''"elder brother"'' in Bengali), is an Indian cricket administrator, commentator and former national cricket team captain w ...

, Rahul Dravid,

Yuvraj Singh Yuvraj Singh (born 12 December 1981) is a former Indian international cricketer who played in all formats of the game. He is an all-rounder who batted left-handed in the middle order and bowled slow left-arm orthodox . He has won 7 Player of ...

and

Virender Sehwag Virender Sehwag (born 20 October 1978) is a former Indian cricketer who represented India from 1999 to 2013. Widely regarded as one of the most destructive opener, he played for Delhi Capitals in IPL and Delhi and Haryana in Indian domestic ...

were classified as

icon player Icon player is a status given to an athlete to indicate that they are the most valued player in the team. The title is most commonly currently used in domestic cricket, particularly in the Bangladesh Premier League, Afghanistan Premier League an ...

s. They played for the franchises representing their home towns and hence did not enter the auction. Few players were classified as marquee players and the teams which lost out on icon players were allowed one extra marquee player to be selected in the auction. The first auction was conducted on 20 February 2008 with

Mahendra Singh Dhoni Mahendra Singh Dhoni (; born 7 July 1981) is an Indian former international cricketer who was captain of the Indian national cricket team in limited-overs formats from 2007 to 2017 and in Test cricket from 2008 to 2014. He is also the curren ...

winning the highest bid of US$1.5 million.

Andrew Symonds Andrew Symonds (9 June 1975 – 14 May 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, who played all three formats as a batting all-rounder. Commonly nicknamed "Roy", he was a key member of two World Cup winning squads. Symonds played as a r ...

was the most costly foreign player. A further second auction was held for few foreign players signed. Teams also signed players on individual basis.

Venues

Rules and regulations

Points in the group stage were awarded as follows: In the event of tied scores after both teams have faced their quota of overs, a

bowl-out A bowl-out (sometimes termed a bowl-off) was used as a tiebreaker in various forms of limited overs cricket to decide a match that would otherwise end in a tie. Five bowlers from each side deliver one or two balls each at an unguarded wicket (t ...

will determine the winner, even in the group stage. In the group stage, teams will be ranked on the following criteria: # Higher number of points # If equal, higher number of wins # If still equal,

net run rate Net run rate (NRR) is a statistical method used in analysing teamwork and/or performance in cricket. It is the most commonly used method of ranking teams with equal points in limited overs league competitions, similar to goal difference in foo ...

# If still equal, lower bowling strike rate # If still equal, result of head-to-head meeting.

Teams and standings

Points table

Match summary

League stage

Matches

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- * ''Mumbai Indians 5 run outs in their innings is a record in the IPL'' ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Playoffs

Knockout stage

Semi-finals

----

Final

Statistics

Batting

Most runs

Tournament's leading scorer wore an orange cap when fielding. :

Full Table on Cricinfo
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Bowling

Most wickets

Tournament's leading wicket taker wore a purple cap when fielding. :

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Note: Economy rate acts as a tie-breaker if players are level for most wickets.

Controversies

Cheerleaders

The IPL has been criticised by a few politicians and feminists for bringing in foreign

cheerleaders Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

, which is seen by many to not be in the traditional spirit of the game, as well as being against some Indian sensibilities. Two cheerleaders from London were asked to leave the ground at Mohali "because of the colour of their skin" by Wizcraft International Entertainment, which handles the team Kings XI Punjab. Ellesha Newton and Sherinne Anderson, both from London and of African ancestry were allegedly barred from entering the stadium by employees of Wizcraft International Entertainment on the pretext that "people don’t like dark girls here". Both the girls also allege that an employee referred to them with the racial slur ″

nigger In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...

″.

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the world ...

(BCCI) said a probe would be initiated by the IPL only if the two women officially complain to IPL commissioner Lalit Modi. BCCI and IPL officials are surprised that the two cheerleaders did not complain about the alleged racist behaviour while they were in India and spoke about it only after they returned to London. "We have not received any complaint from any cheerleaders that they were asked to leave by the Mohali-based Kings XI Punjab franchise recently because of the colour of their skin," BCCI joint secretary M.P. Pandove said in Mohali.

Sreesanth – Harbhajan Singh altercation

On 25 April 2008, following the

Kings XI Punjab Punjab Kings (PBKS) are a franchise cricket team based in Mohali, Punjab, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Established in 2008 as the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), the franchise is jointly owned by Mohit Burman, Ness Wadia, Preity Zi ...

's victory over the Mumbai Indians at Mohali, Punjab player Sreesanth was slapped under his eye by

Harbhajan Singh Harbhajan Singh (born 3 July 1980) is a member of parliament in Rajya Sabha and an Indian retired cricketer and cricket commentator, who played for the Indian national cricket team from 1998 - 2016. Singh was a right-arm spin bowler. In India ...

, the in-stand captain of Mumbai. The incident came to light as Sreesanth was caught by TV cameras sobbing inconsolably on the field before the presentation ceremony. Sreesanth had since downplayed the incident saying he had no complaints against Harbhajan who was "like an elder brother" to him. Harbhajan's team had lost their third consecutive match when he apparently reacted violently to Sreesanth's approaching him and reportedly saying "hard luck". The footage of the slap has not yet been released for public viewing. The

launched an investigation into the incident and decided to ban Harbhajan for the remainder 11 matches of the Twenty20 tournament.

References

External links

*
Cricinfo – Indian Premier League
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indian Premier League, 2008 Indian Premier League seasons