Grand Opening of ipl

2009 CAPE TOWN: The grand opening of the second season of Indian Premier League (IPL) will be held here on Friday.In a bid to glitz the tournament up to the hilt, IPL chairman Lalit Modi has spared no costs to get fans into the stadiums and retain the global TV audiences that made the inaugural Twenty20 tournament a success. Modi has spent lavishly in South Africa on the occasion of second edition of IPL. Cape Town is no stranger to the rich and famous and the IPL teams are staying at the lavish and recently-opened One and Only, the city's latest five-star venture. All the franchise owners, Shah Rukh Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Preity Zinta, the Ambanis, have arrived here. Khan is one of Bollywood's biggest stars and owns the Kolkata Knight Riders, while Shetty is co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals and a former winner of Celebrity Big Brother. Fellow actress Zinta is part-owner of the Kings XI Punjab franchise and will jet in from Port Elizabeth where she has been watching the team train and attending the fourth ODI between South Africa and Australia. Business tycoon Mukesh Ambani is the head of the fourth-richest family in the world, and owns the Mumbai Indians through his conglomerate Reliance Industries. Then there are the WAGS. England batsman Kevin Pietersen will return to his homeland with wife Jessica Taylor, a reality TV star who recently competed in TV's Dancing On Ice. Bollywood actress Lakshmi Rai is also expected to spend some time in Cape Town watching India's pin-up captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, with the duo rumoured to be dating. Cape Town's fashionistas will also be keeping tabs on Deccan Chargers with Andrew Symonds' girlfriend Katie Johnson joining the extravagana. Johnson was recently voted Australia's top WAG in an online poll.