The Indian Premier League is here - but who will win it?

The Indian Premier League is here - but who will win it?

Andrew Hughes gives us the Indian Premier League: auctions, the world's best players, franchises owned by Bollywood stars and all-action Twenty20 cricket. But who is the best bet to win it?

Depending on your point of view, the Indian Premier League represents either the dawn of a thrilling new era or the opening of a Pandora's Box that will ruin the game. Others might like to tell themselves that this is just a passing fad and ignore it in the hope that it might go away.

But whatever your thoughts on the merits of this new cricket venture, head in the sand is no position for the intelligent bettor. In all likelihood the IPL will be around for the foreseeable future and as well as attracting a worldwide audience of millions, it is bound to generate huge interest on Betfair. So with a little while to go before the tournament gets underway on 18th April, there is time to get to grips with what it is all about. And as with any new format, those who are prepared to do the research will reap the profits.

First the basics. The IPL consists of eight franchises based in eight Indian cities. The franchises were awarded after a bidding process and the winners ranged from Bollywood film stars to large Indian corporations. Last Wednesday the franchise owners took part in an open auction for the 75 international players who had signed up to the IPL. In addition there were five 'Iconic' players, (Tendulkar, Sehwag, Dravid, Yuvraj and Ganguly) who had already been allocated to their home teams.

The teams will play home and away in a league format, with the top four going forward to the semi-finals and final in Mumbai at the end of May. The two finalists will also play in the Twenty20 Champions League that is planned for the autumn.

And now that the international players have been allocated, we are in a position to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the various teams. You can check out the squads here though you should remember that the domestic Indian players haven't yet been confirmed so these squads are not complete. You should also bear in mind that some of the international players may not be available, either for all or part of the inaugural tournament. The Australians are particularly affected with their tour of Pakistan scheduled for March and April. Justin Langer will also be unavailable for the inaugural tournament as he will be honouring his Somerset commitments.

So what should we look for when trying to pick the winner of the IPL? Well, with so many talented performers on show, the standard of cricket is likely to be high and so success is most likely to go to those teams with a balance of hard-hitting batsmen, accurate bowlers and dynamic fielding. And there is already a clear favourite.

Hyderabad, currently trading at [4.5] have the most explosive batting line-up of all with Gilchrist, Gibbs, Symonds and Afridi all competing for places at the top of the order. Throw in the stylish Laxman and useful allrounders Styris, Rohit Sharma and Piush Chawla and they deserve their place at the head of the market. Their only weakness might be in the bowling with three left-armers in RP Singh, Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa. Vaas in particular might suffer on the flat Indian wickets.

Amongst the others, Kolkata [6.0] will be an exciting team to watch and though they have some in and out performers like Chris Gayle and Shoaib Akhtar, they have the solidity of Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly and the deadly accurate yorkers of Umar Gul, top wicket taker in the World Twenty20 Championships.

Another team I like the look of are Delhi at [6.0] who have a nice blend of big hitters (Virender Sehwag, A B de Villiers, Manoj Tiwary, Tillakaratne Dilshan) accurate and varied bowlers (Mohammed Asif, Daniel Vettori, Glenn McGrath) and an overwhelmingly young fielding side. Delhi might have a problem, however, in that all of their specialist bowlers are foreign. One of the quirks of this tournament is that no team is allowed to have more than four foreigners in their starting XI, so that is something you should bear in mind before having a bet on the tournament winner.

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