MAX, India's Premium Hindi Movies and Special Events channel and the official broadcaster of the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL), will now bring home the real cricket experience - big, bright and bold, with its DLF IPL telecast in High Definition (HD) format on the Sun Direct platform from March 12 onwards. This is for the first time in India that the country's most enthralling sports extravaganza will make its appearance in High Definition TV format.

Living up to the brand value of innovation and passion that MAX has always stood for, they have forayed into this alliance with Sun Direct for the HD format, with a live feed free of any advertisements, giving viewers the blissful and much desired experience of a live match, uninterrupted! Further, the HD telecast is combined with Dolby Digital sound and 16:9 picture ratio. With this combination viewers will have the most spectacular in-stadium experience than ever before.

The launch of the Indian Premier League's (IPL) third season tonight in Mumbai marks a milestone in cricketing history - the IPL is going green. Tipped to become the single largest environmental awareness campaign in the Indian subcontinent, Batting for the Environment is a partnership between the IPL and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Led by UNEP Goodwill Ambassador Sachin Tendulkar, team captains from the Deccan Chargers to the Kolkata Knight Riders will make a Green Pledge to save the planet at the opening ceremony.

Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) today revealed the high-performance design, development and production services which will take it into a new era. TMG, based in Cologne, Germany, has restructured to provide specialist solutions ranging from complete car development to individual component testing or production, aimed at the automotive or engineering sectors and beyond.

Around 200 experts provide a flexible portfolio of specialised services which for the first time is available to external clients, in addition to the worldwide Toyota family.

Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has been named a United Nations Environment Programme Goodwill Ambassador. The appointment, made by UNEP Executive Director Mr. Achim Steiner in Mumbai, allows one of the world's greatest cricketers the opportunity to use his legendary popularity to raise public awareness and harness support for environmental action in India and the world.

Tendulkar has been a strong supporter of the work of the UN, having lent his voice to a UNICEF campaign in India, raising awareness about the importance of personal hygiene.

England captains Andrew Strauss and Charlotte Edwards will be swapping their cricket whites for paintbrushes and overalls when they launch this year's NatWest CricketForce at Harrow St Mary's CC in London on Friday, March 26th. The pair will kick off the three-day long volunteering initiative refurbishing local cricket clubs around the country. Fellow England star Graeme Swann, and his Nottinghamshire team-mates will take part at Gedling Colliery CC, near Nottingham on Saturday March 27th.

The programme will round off on Sunday, March 28th when Scarborough CC, will invite England pace bowler James Anderson and former Test Umpire Harold ‘Dickie' Bird to join forces with volunteers and NatWest staff aiming to rejuvenate one of the oldest and most distinguished cricket grounds in the country. The 2010 NatWest CricketForce will be the biggest in the project's nine-year history with more than 1,500 clubs taking part and an estimated 85,000 volunteers: a bigger volunteering programme than the Olympics.

PVR BluO, India's largest bowling center today inaugurated its biggest corporate bowling tournament. In its second innings, Lufthansa Pin Strike 2 has employees representing around 80 corporates from the Capital Region participating in the tournament. The tournament will spread over 5 weeks and will be held on every Thursday evening. At the end of 4 weeks the top 12 teams will compete for the finals on April 8th, 2010.

Each corporate team has 4 members. The grand prize of the tournament is four return tickets to Europe. A few participating names include PepsiCo, Make My Trip, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, BMW etc.

Present at the inauguration were Mr. Gautam Dutta, CEO, BluO, Mr. Axel Hilgers, India Head of Lufthansa and Mr. Subhasish Acharya, Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

There is no change of leader in this year's first edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola Women's World Ranking, with the USA blazing a trail ahead of Germany, Brazil and Sweden. Thanks to their prestigious 3-2 victory over rivals Germany at the Algarve Cup in early March, the US women have extended their lead at the top of the ranking considerably. Canada have made the leap into the top ten at the expense of Denmark as a result of their victory in the Cyprus Women's Cup. Meanwhile, the Japanese, who share fifth place with Korea DPR, have reached their highest position since the introduction of the ranking.

RUSTY THERON continued his upwardly mobile career when he was awarded a contract to play for the Kings XI Punjab franchise in the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Theron, who has had an outstanding summer for the Chevrolet Warriors in both the MTN40 and the Standard Bank Domestic Pro20, was recently also awarded his first national contract with Cricket South Africa.

He has yet to represent the Proteas but is a strong candidate for next month's ICC World Twenty20 to be played in the West Indies.

The Warriors have given Theron permission to leave for India straight after today's Standard Bank Pro20 final and he will be available to play in the IPL from next week.