The much waited official announcement on IPL schedule is out.

IPL2 opening ceremony and finals are slotted to be held in Cape Town and Johannesburg respectively. According to official schedule unleashed by IPL chairman Lalith Modi yesterday IPL would commence on April 18 and conclude in May 23.

IPL matches are going to be held in eight different cities namely Johannesburg, Durban, Capetown, Pretoria, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, East London and Port Elizabeth.

Not surprisingly, Durban, which has huge South Asian population has been given lion’s hsare of sixteen matches in total 59 matches to be played in the whole tournament, while centurion park in Pretoria would witness 12 matches followed by Johannesburg and Cape Town, who are allotted eight matches each.

Port Elizabeth and East London are trusted with four matches respectively, whereas Bloemfontein and Kimberley would host two matches each. Matches are said to commence in either 4 PM IST or 8 PM IST, as scheduled earlier to harness the prime time slots of television.

Lalith Modi, amidst all apprehensions about the tournament success, stated that IPL would be exciting and when worlds top 100 players battle out in a single stage, one could witness nothing but exciting and pulsating cricket and also added its going to be different cricketing experience all together for everyone, where audience would witness Kevin Pietersen facing Andrew Flintoff and also Morkel brothers battle out against each other, who represent different franchise in tournament.

Experts also feel that, the franchise which has, huge contingent of South African players can obviously benefit, from their inputs of local knowledge. For instance Bangalore Royal challengers are said to comprise of largest bunch, of five South African players.

Lalith Modi, also informed that ticket sales would be most likely be commencing within next 48 hours and asked people log onto IPL official website iplt20.com, to get further updates on it.  He also hinted that, ticket pricing would be moderate and it would be well less than what Cricket South Africa charges for their matches and greater than their charges of domestic matches.

Even though they are going to showcase one of the world best players he reiterated, that they want people to come in flocks and flood the stand, rather than accrue money, through tickets, and also said that, they will make all possible arrangements, so that cricketing aspect of IPL would strike symbiosis with entertainment aspect.

So, IPL is going to be one big cricketing entertainment bonanza, which is going to glitter in South Africa this April and May.