Steve Smith

The billionaire Indian Premier League starts Saturday aiming to prove that it is about the "spirit of cricket" rather than success at all costs, after the banning of Steve Smith and David Warner over a Test cheating storm. The lucrative but scandal-tainted Twenty20 tournament has spent the last few years battling its own series of controversies. So when news broke that Smith and Warner -- who had both been due to captain IPL teams -- had been barred by Cricket Australia for 12 months over last month's ball-tampering row in South Africa, India's cricket board quickly followed suit.