By Alex Gonzalez

This might not be baseball’s hot stove or hockey’s trade deadline, but in the Indian Premier League, teams took advantage of the trading period, resulting in seven players finding new homes for the upcoming season, the second in the league’s fledgling history.

The biggest transaction of the day was a deal sending Indian pace bowler Zaheer Khan from the Royal Challengers Bangladore to the Mumbai Indians in exchange for top order batsman Robin Uthappa.   The 23 year old righty batted 35.56 in the inaugural season.  Khan, 30, scored 13 wickets this past season for Mumbai.

Another transaction that took place was ex-Indian international Ashish Nehra traded from the Mumbai Indians to the Delhi Daredevils for top-order batsman Shikhar Dhawan.  Dhawan, 23, batted 37.78 this season with a striker rating of 115.25.  Nehra bowled 12 wickets and sported an economy rate of 7.82. 

A three way trade also occurred, with Jaydev Shah being dealt from the league’s first champion Rajasthan Royals to the Mumbai Indians, Gaurav Dhiman moving from Mumbai to Bangalore, and Pankaj Singh joining Dhiman in Bangalore as he leaves the Royals.

These moves are being made in order to set up for the player auction on February 6, where teams can bid against each other for the best talent cricket has to offer.  Lalit Modi, the Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League, is looking forward to an even better season in 2009. 

"Having laid the foundation for success in the first season of the IPL, it is only critical that we take the League onto greater heights in 2009,” Modi said.  “This meeting on the Player Trading Regulations is an important step in helping franchises redress the integral balance of their playing squads to make them more competitive.”
Despite the fact that certain agencies such as Reuters and AFP do not cover this league, the Indian Premier League had a successful rookie season, with players such as the Royals’ Shane Warne and Sohail Tanvir becoming instant stars.  The first season ran from April 18 to June 1 of last year.

If you’re a cricket lover, then the next couple of weeks will likely have more deals done so teams can figure out how to dethrone the Rajasthan Royals and how the Royals plan on repeating as champions.  If you’re not too familiar with cricket, don’t worry.  A league as new as the Indian Premier League can always use a growing fan base, so check out the league when the second season kicks off in April.