Business over, games begin in IPL

After the fun of the auction, action on the pitch begins in the inaugural Indian Premier League on Friday with as big a collection of stars as anything the World Cup could hope to offer and everything set for a superb competition.

But while the matches promise a lot of entertainment, picking a winner is about as hard as I can remember in any competition. Not only is it Twenty20, but the teams have never played together before and the chances of real team spirit are virtually nil.

Instead of picking a winner, then - he says, chickening out - I will not even risk it and instead, give you a quick run-down of the teams and their prices and let you make up your own minds. Now is that generosity or what?!

Bangalore Royal Challengers - 15/2
Captain: Rahul Dravid
Coach: Venkatesh Prasad

Rahul Dravid (c), Abdur Razzak, B Akhil, KP Appanna, J Arunkumar, Mark Boucher (wk), Nathan Bracken, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Bharat Chipli, Shreevats Goswami (wk), Wasim Jaffer, Sunil Joshi, Jacques Kallis, Zaheer Khan, Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Anil Kumble, Misbah-ul-Haq, Devraj Patil, Dale Steyn, Ross Taylor, Vinay Kumar, Cameron White

It will be interesting to see how this side does. Their batsmen look full of class, but perhaps more suited to Test cricket than the Twenty20. The likes of Dravid, Kallis and even Chanderpaul are workers of a ball rather than sheer sloggers. Dale Steyn and Zaheer Khan will lead the attack, and Anil Kumble will offer variety, but I'd be surprised if they get as far as the semi-finals.

Chennai Super Kings - 5/1
Captain: Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Coach: Kepler Wessels

MS Dhoni (c), P Amarnath, Manpreet Gony, Viraj Vilas Kadbe, S Anirudha, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, Lakshmipathy Balaji, N Einstein, Stephen Fleming, Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Shadab Jakati, Joginder Sharma, Arun Karthik, Suresh Kumar, Albie Morkel, Abhinav Mukund, Muttiah Muralitharan, Makhaya Ntini, Jacob Oram, Parthiv Patel (wk), Suresh Raina, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Sudeep Tyagi

The team that spent the most money in the auction has a host of talent but can they gel in time to be a force? MS Dhoni is an excellent captain in the shorter forms of the game and in Matthew Hayden and Stephen Fleming, they have some excellent, dominant batsmen. Their bowling is also good but perhaps not great, so it might be tough.

Delhi Daredevils - 6/1
Captain: Virender Sehwag
Coach: Greg Shipperd

Virender Sehwag (c), Rajat Bhatia ,AB de Villiers ,Shikhar Dhawan ,Tillakaratne Dilshan, Gautam Gambhir, Brett Geeves, Dinesh Karthik, Glenn McGrath, Farveez Maharoof, Yo Mahesh, Mithun Manhas, Amit Mishra, Mohammad Asif, Yogesh Nagar, Pradeep Sangwan, Shoaib Malik, Mayank Tehlan, Manoj Tiwary, Daniel Vettori, Tejashwi Yadav

There are few more dominant batsmen in the game than Virender Sehwag but he has a tough task to lift a generally young, but largely inexperienced side, at least in the batting department. However, their bowling attack has plenty of experience and loads of variety, with Glenn McGrath enjoying an encore and Daniel Vettori wheeling away. Could do well.

Deccan Chargers - 3/1 favourites
Captain: VVS Laxman
Coach: Robin Singh

VVS Laxman (c), Sanjay Bangar, Halhadar Das (wk), Herschelle Gibbs, Adam Gilchrist (wk), D Kalyankrishna, Pragyan Ojha, D Ravi Teja, PM Sarvesh Kumar, Shahid Afridi, Rohit Sharma, Chamara Silva, RP Singh, Scott Styris, Andrew Symonds, Chaminda Vaas, Venugopal Rao, P Vijaykumar, Arjun Yadav, Nuwan Zoysa

This team has an excellent batting line-up, with Laxman, Gibbs, the destructive Gilchrist and Symonds and the inconsistent but at times brilliant Shahid Afridi, but you get the impression their bowling is a bit weak. Tough task.

Kings XI Punjab - 6/1
Captain: Yuvraj Singh
Coach: Tom Moody

Yuvraj Singh (c), Ajitesh Argal, Piyush Chawla, Pankaj Dharmani, Rishi Dhawan, Karan Goel, James Hopes, Mahela Jayawardene, Simon Katich, Uday Kaul, Sahil Kukreja, Brett Lee, Shaun Marsh, Kyle Mills, Wilkin Mota, Irfan Pathan, Luke Pomersbach, Ramesh Powar, Nitin Saini, Kumar Sangakkara, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Vikram Singh, Sunny Sohal, Sreesanth, Tanmay Srivastava

With Brett Lee, Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan and Kyle Mills, they have plenty of strength in the bowling department. It just depends if their batsmen can back them up enough to compete with the rest. I am not so sure.

Kolkata Knight Riders 7/1
Captain: Sourav Ganguly
Coach: John Buchnan

Sourav Ganguly (c), Siddarth Kaul, Ajit Agarkar, Rohan Banerjee, Aakash Chopra, Debabrata Das, Chris Gayle, David Hussey, Iqbal Abdulla, Murali Kartik, Saurasish Lahiri, Brendon McCullum (wk), Mohammad Hafeez, Ricky Ponting, Cheteshwar Pujara, Prasanta Saha, Salman Butt, Ishant Sharma, Shoaib Akhtar, Laxmi Shukla, Tatenda Taibu (wk), Umar Gul, Yashpal Singh

The Prince of Calcutta and the Australia captain in the same team? Wonders will never cease. However, if Ganguly and Ponting play well, then they will be a factor, with Chris Gayle bashing it everywhere at the top of the order. The bowling is not as strong, but still decent, so they should not be underestimated.

Mumbai Indians - 6/1
Captain: Sachin Tendulkar
Coach: Lalchand Rajput

Sachin Tendulkar (c), Loots Bosman, Ankeet Chavan, Siddharth Chitnis, Gaurav Dhiman, Dilhara Fernando, Harbhajan Singh, Sanath Jayasuriya, Musavir Khote, Dhawal Kulkarni, Lasith Malinga, Abhishek Nayar, Ashish Nehra, Manish Pandey, Rajesh Pawar, Shaun Pollock, Ashwell Prince, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohan Raje, Luke Ronchi, Pinal Shah (wk), Swapnil Singh, Yogesh Vijay Takawale (wk), Dominic Thornely, Saurabh Tiwary, Robin Uthappa, Vikrant Yeligati

Super Sachin looks like he has a tough task on his hands. Though Jayasuriya will back him up, they look a little light in the batting department and will need plenty of people to chip in to help them out. That said, the signing of Pollock is a good one, and you never know.

Rajasthan Royals - 10/1
Captain: Shane Warne
Coach: Shane Warne

Shane Warne, Aditya Angle, Swapnil Asnodkar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Kaif, Kamran Akmal (wk), Sumit Khatri, Taruwar Kohli, Justin Langer, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Parag More, Morne Morkel, Pankaj Singh, Munaf Patel, Niraj Patel, Yusuf Pathan, Mahesh Rawat, Anup Revandkar, Dinesh Salunke, Jaydev Shah, Graeme Smith, Sohail Tanvir, Siddharth Trivedi, Shane Watson, Younis Khan

The team coached by Shane Warne and captained by Shane Warne will depend an awful lot on the performance of the great man. The rest of the team looks ok, but they will need some people to step up above their usual levels of play if they are to compete.