Deccan Chargers

Deccan Chargers is the franchise that represents the city of Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League[1]. From 2009, the team will be led by Adam Gilchrist and coached by Darren Lehmann, both former Australian Test cricketers. There is no Icon Player for the team, although V.V.S. Laxman rejected the offer to be an icon player in order to free funds to purchase more stars for the team.

[edit] Franchise History
The Deccan Chargers franchise is owned by Deccan Chronicle. The media group acquired the franchise from IPL for $107 million on January 24, 2008. It is announced that from 2009 season onwards the team will change its jersey(from beige-black to sparkling silver-blue), logo and also the team will have much more hype in it.[2]

[edit] 2008 IPL Season
Despite the fact that the team was one of the favourites to win the inauguaral edition of the IPL, the team failed to reach the semi-finals. In addition, Andrew Symonds (Deccan's most expensive player) batted only 3 innings before leaving to play for the Australian national team, and team captain Laxman had his season ended by an injury after 6 games. Only 3 Deccan bowlers, R. P. Singh, Pragyan Ojha and Shahid Afridi, took more than 4 wickets in the competition. In this 14 match period, the team went winless at home and only managed 2 wins overall, one against the Mumbai Indians and one against the Chennai Super Kings. They finished at the bottom of the table.

[edit] Players
The franchise acquired players like Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Shahid Afridi, Scott Styris and Herschelle Gibbs. The main bowlers acquired by the franchise were R.P. Singh, Nuwan Zoysa and Chaminda Vaas. From 2009, the team will be captained by Adam Gilchrist who replaced the captain of the inaugural season, V.V.S. Laxman. In 2008, VVS Laxman was intended to be the Icon Player for the team but he relinquished his Icon Player Status and settled for a signing amount of $375,000, which allowed the team to bid for costly players and still remain under the salary cap.
A huge controversy has risen amidst the Deccan Chargers camp, as their ace player VVS Laxman has reportedly decided not to play for the team again. Laxman, a senior Indian batsman, is upset by the way the owners have overlooked his contributions and sacrifices and named Adam Gilchrist as the captain for the next season, without even informing him before-hand. People realized something was wrong when another star player Shahid Afridi accused VVS Laxman of his below-par performance and inability to lead on the field in the inaugural season. A temporary truce was resorted to, but the flames have reappeared soon. Later they have terminated the contract of Shahid Afridi and after team management have snapped their ties with him.

[edit] 2009 Season

[edit] New Administration And Support Staff
After the debacle of 2008, the team management have sacked the entire previous administration(their CEO, Managers), the Captain and the entire Coaching Staff except assistant coach Kanwaljit Singh. They have sacked their CEO J.Kalyankrishnan after one week of the 2008 Season, Coach Robin Singh and later Captain V.V.S.Laxman and replaced them with Tim Wright(later he too resigned after violating Foreigners Act), the former Australian batsman Darren Lehmann and former Australia Wicket-Keeper Adam Gilchrist respectively.

[edit] Trading
In a low key trading of players, the Deccan Chargers management had placed Shahid Afridi and Herschelle Gibbs up for sale, a direct result of their below par performance during the 2008 season, however no Franchise owners were interested in acquiring these two players. Due to this the Deccan Chargers management have ceased all ties with Shahid Afridi, due to a disagreement with former Deccan Chargers captain V.V.S.Laxman. They have also released former India all-rounder Sanjay Bangar.

[edit] New-Signings
Before the second player auction took place the management signed Queensland all-rounder Ryan Harris owing to a strong recommendation from Coach Darren Lehmann.
In the resulting auction the Deccan Chargers franchise acquired two West Indian players, Fidel Edwards for a fee of $150,000, and Dwayne Smith for $100,000
They have also signed up six new domestic players, T.Suman and Abhinav Kumar are two batsmen, bowler S.M.Shoaib from the Hyderabad team signed after their consistent performances on the domestic circuit, M.S.Bisla, a Wicket-Keeper from Himachal Pradesh and two fast bowlers from Punjab, Jaskarandeep Singh and H.S. Bansal.Some have stated that the Chargers' spinner Pragyan Ojha will be their major asset because of his recent performance in all forms of the game.

[edit] CEO Resignation
Chargers new CEO Tim Wright have resigned, after alleged to have committed serious violations of Foreigners Registration Act and this made to resign as CEO of Deccan Chargers. Later team Vice-President Venkat Reddy said that team will not have CEO for 2009 season.

Etymology
The Deccan Chargers are represented by a charging bull, the mascot for the chargers which signifies strength, power and aggression .[3]

[edit] Current Squad
Deccan Chargers Roster
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Batsmen
05 Chamara Silva
08 Herschelle Gibbs
19 V.V.S.Laxman
26 Arjun Yadav
36 Venugopal Rao
45 Rohit Sharma(Vice-Captain)
59 D.B.Ravi Teja
-- T.Suman
-- Abhinav Kumar
-- Azhar Bilakhia
All Rounders
12 Harmeet Singh
50 Dwayne Smith
56 Scott Styris
63 Andrew Symonds
-- Ryan Harris
Wicket Keepers
18 Adam Gilchrist(Captain)
11 Halhadar Das
-- M.S.Bisla
Bowlers
09 R. P. Singh
20 Fidel Edwards
22 Chaminda Vaas
23 Nuwan Zoysa
27 D.Kalyankrishna
30 Pragyan Ojha
-- M Sarveesh Kumar
-- Jaskarandeep Singh
-- P. Vijay Kumar
-- S.M.Shoaib
Support Staff
Head Coach: Darren Lehmann
Assistant Coaches: Kanwaljit Singh
Assistant Coaches: Mike Young
Physiotherapist: Dr Sean Slattery
Strength and Conditioning Coach: Steve Smith
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