Shaun Marsh

Shaun Edward Marsh (born 9 July 1983) is an Australian cricketer who plays for the Western Warriors in Australian domestic cricket and has represented Australia at Test, One Day International and Twenty20 International levels. Nicknamed SOS ("Son of Swampy"), he is a left-handed opening batsman and very occasional spin bowler.

Early life

Marsh and his younger brother Mitchell attended Wesley College in Perth where they excelled in cricket. In 1998 Shaun set the record, which was broken ten years later, for the highest average (210) in the Public Schools Association's Darlot Cup cricket competition.

Junior career

After representing Western Australia at Under 17 and Under 19 level, Marsh represented Australia at both the 1999–2000 and 2001–02 ICC Under-19 World Cups. In the 1999–2000 tournament, held in Sri Lanka, he was the second highest run scorer for Australia behind Shane Watson, and other notable teammates included played alongside Michael Clarke, Nathan Hauritz and Mitchell Johnson. At the 2001–02 tournament in New Zealand, which Australia won, he scored the fourth most runs for the tournament, with the captain of the Australian side, Cameron White being the leading run scorer.

Kings XI Punjab

The Kings XI Punjab (abbreviated as KXIP) are a franchise cricket team based in Mohali, Punjab, that plays in the Indian Premier League. The team is jointly owned by leading Bollywood actress Preity Zinta, Wadia Group scion Ness Wadia, Dabur’s Mohit Burman and Karan Paul. The team plays its home matches at the PCA Stadium, Mohali. Since the 2010 IPL, they have been playing some of their home games at Dharamsala as well. The team holds the record for the longest winning streak in IPL.

History

In 2008, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) created the cricket tournament Indian Premier League based on the Twenty20 format of the game. Franchises for eight cities were made available in an auction held in Mumbai on 20 February. The team representing Punjab was bought by the Dabur group's Mohit Burman (46%), the Wadia group's Ness Wadia (23%), Preity Zinta (23%), and Karan Paul of the Apeejay Surendera Group (minor stake). The group paid a total of $76 million to acquire the franchise. On 10 October 2010 the franchise agreements for the Kings XI Punjab and the Rajasthan Royals were terminated by the league, but the termination was repealed.

2008 Indian Premier League

The 2008 Indian Premier League season was the debut season of the Indian Premier League, established by the BCCI in 2007. The season commenced on 18 April 2008 with the final match held on 1 June 2008. The competition started with a double round robin group 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.

In a match which went down to the last ball, Rajasthan Royals defeated Chennai Super Kings in the final to win the title, with Yusuf Pathan named the player of the match and Shane Watson adjudged the player of the tournament.Sohail Tanvir won the purple cap for being the top wicket-taking bowler while Shaun Marsh 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 Chennai Super Kings.

Player auctions

Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag were classified as icon players. They will play 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 auctions were conducted on 20 February 2008 with Mahendra Singh Dhoni winning the highest bid of US$1.5 million.

Rajasthan Royals

The Rajasthan Royals (often abbreviated as RR) are a franchise cricket team in the Indian Premier League from the city of Jaipur, suspended till the 2017 season. Founded in 2008 as one of the initial eight IPL franchises, the Royals are owned by Manoj Badale. The team played its home matches at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur and also had secondary home grounds at the Sardar Patel Stadium at Ahmedabad and the Brabourne Stadium at Mumbai.

The Royals are often considered as the Moneyball team of the IPL. The Royals are known to unearth obscure exciting talent. The team won the inaugural edition of the IPL under the captaincy of Shane Warne, despite being written off as a title contender by the media and fans. The Royals were also the runners-up of the 2013 Champions League Twenty20 under Rahul Dravid's captaincy.

On 14 July 2015 the verdict reached by a panel appointed by India's Supreme Court suspended Rajasthan Royals plus fellow Indian Premier League side Chennai Super Kings for two years over a corruption and match fixing scandal, meaning they could not participate in both the 2016 and 2017 IPL tournaments.