Amid security fears in the subcontinent, the second Indian Premier League will be held in South Africa. The scheduled IPL2 fixtures coincided with the 2009 Indian General Election and as such the security forces were unable to cover the cricket matches.

The IPL is a 220 format cricket tournament and due to the large amounts of money involved it attracts many of today’s players. The first tournament was held in 2008 and received a mixed reception: many loved the opportunity to see some of the best cricketers in the world play together, but the tournament coincided with other leagues around the world, as well as matches internationals, meaning some players were banned by their clubs and countries from joining. One such country was England, who were not letting go of their centrally contracted players, and as a result there was only one English representative, Dimitri Mascarenhas from Hampshire, in India.

This year, the English Cricket Board has been more lenient, allowing its players to join the league as long as they put their country first. This turned out to be a happy compromise and Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff soon grabbed headlines by becoming the most expensive players at auction, both for $1.5 million. Flintoff was signed by Chennai Super Kings while Pietersen went to Bangalore Royal Challengers. Mascarenhas will return to Rajasthan Royals, last season’s winners, while fellow Englishmen Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara and Graham Napier will be in South Africa.

The inaugural tournament was won by the Mascarenhas team and much of this is due to Shane Warne’s captaincy and coaching. The final came down to the last ball: with the scores tied, Sohail Tanvir hit the game-winning run to win the match, though much of the credit must go to Yusuf Pathan for taking three wickets and a half-century in the match.

With the announcement that South Africa will host this year’s tournament – which is still called the Indian Premier League despite its new location – cricket fans have booked flights to Cape Town to watch the opening matches – the first being the Chennai Super Kings of Flintoff against the Mumbai Indians of Napier. before two more Englishmen (Mascarenhas and Pietersen) meet in the second game of the day. All the players hope to finish their tour in Johannesburg, where the final will take place; everyone, that is, except the English Test players, who must be back in London before the final to take on the West Indies.