The DLF Indian Premier League is a Twenty-20 cricket tournament created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, much akin to the English Premier League. Eight teams from all over the country play against each other for the top honour. Each team can include four foreign players in addition to the icon players and local youngsters. Each team will pay against the other seven teams in one home and one away match and at the end of the group stage the top four will proceed to the semi-finals.



The teams were auctioned by the BCCI in the month of January 2008 and the Indian Corporate world showed much interest in the format by bidding successfully. As many as 6 out of the 8 teams were bought for record amounts by top Indian billionaries. The split up is given in the below table.

Team Owner
 Price in million USD
Mumbai Indians Mukesh Ambani $111.9
Bangalore Royal Challengers Vijay Mallya $111.6
Deccan Chargers Deccan Chronicle $107
Chennai Super Kings India Cements $91
Delhi Daredevils GMR Groups $84
Kings XI Punjab Preity Zinta & Ness Wadia $76
Kolkata Knight Riders Shah Rukh Khan $75
Rajastan Royals Emerging Media UK $67

Players for the teams were auctioned in the month of February and many players bagged record bids.Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh are the icon players in the league and will play for their respective home teams. Each of these icon players will get a pay package of more than a million USD each for the 6 week tournament.

The tournament has had its controversies with many former players like Wasim Akram opposing the new format stating it will curb the national development of cricket. Many smaller boards like West Indies Cricket Board and New Zealand Cricket Board also expressed concern over the league as some of its top players are willing to retire from national duty inorder to play in the lucurative league. Some boards have also appealed to the ICC to form a separate window for IPL so that it does not clash with the international time-tables.