'It won't be the same' - Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar, the captain of the IPL franchise Mumbai Indians, has said it is disappointing that the 2009 season of the Indian Premier League will be played outside India. The tournament is likely to be shifted to either England or South Africa and Tendulkar said "it won't be the same".

"It is disappointing that the IPL has been moved out of India," he said. "We will certainly miss playing in front of our supporters. It won't be the same. It was a good concept to play home and away matches. This is something that the teams will miss this time around. Wherever we play, we hope to have the same fervour that we had had last season."

Yuvraj Singh, the Kings XI Punjab captain, also said that this season was going to be different from last year. He also hoped that the Indian players would be allowed to take their families to the IPL because they would have just returned from a long tour of New Zealand.

"It is sad that the IPL won't be held in India. But we have to go ahead with it as it is the decision of the board," Yuvraj said. "As we would be returning home from New Zealand after a long tour, we hope we are allowed to take our families along.

"It's a mixed feeling because we were looking forward to play at home, now we have to play away so we feel sad for a lot of Indians who were looking forward to watch it. But due to certain conditions we have play overseas, which is also going to be fun. Anyway if we were playing in India, a lot of home games were shifted to other centres. So it was not actually a home game or away game."

The organisers of the IPL were forced to shift the tournament out of India after the government said it could not guarantee adequate security for the matches because the tournament would clash with general elections in the country in April-May. The decision to shift was taken after the IPL schedule was reworked several times and yet no solution could be found.