GROUP A pits Ireland against Bangladesh but they will also collide with reigning champions India. The Indian Premier League has not only turned Mahendra Singh Dhoni's into a crack Twenty20 outfit, it has also added another zero to the annual pay packets of the A-list celebrities who light up their national game.

Here SPORTSMAIL lines up a few members of each side for comparison.

OPENING ACTS (Virender Sehwag v Jeremy Bray)

Talent show: Sehwag hit the fastest triple-century in Test history, off 278 balls. He also holds the fastest Indian ODI century record (60 balls). Bray doesn't get going quite so quickly but he did record Ireland's first ODI century and their only World Cup hundred, against Bangladesh.

Job lot: Bray earns his living as a personal trainer since quitting Australia for Ireland. Sehwag is the son of a grain merchant who grew up in a bungalow in a family of over 20. Had Delhi Daredevils reached the IPL final the captain would have been given a $1million car and a five per cent stake in the franchise. They didn't make it, but you get the picture.

X-factor: Bray quit his national team in disgust at the governing body's failure to cross the players' palms with gold after the 2007 World Cup. He made a sheepish U-turn this year. Sehwag has gone off on a few strops in his time but Dhoni read out a statement yesterday talking about their 'wonderful unity' in the face of malicious press reports that he had fallen out with the opener.

BIG HITTERS (Yuvraj Singh v Kevin O'Brien)

Talent show: Yuvraj became the first man to hit six sixes in a Twenty20 over when he brutalised England's Stuart Broad at the inaugural event. O'Brien's tally of 12 sixes in a first-class match Kenya was just five adrift of the world record held by Andrew Symonds.

Job lot: O'Brien is now picking up a proper wage from cricket for the first time, having clinched a summer deal with Nottinghamshire. Before that he was living at the family home wondering what to do with his Dublin Business School degree. Yuvraj recently decided he had no use for a Honda City and flogged it for charity on auction site eBay. The man himself fetched $1.063 million (E760,000) at the latest IPL auction.

X-factor: Yuvraj is a bit of a ladies' man and has had unfulfilled courtship with Bollywood stars Kim Sharma and Deeppika Padukone, whom he invited to Sydney to watch him take on Australia. He is now seeing another leading lass, Mandira Bedi. A born sledger, he also loves confrontations with Englishmen, so he and O'Brien have at least one thing in common.

ALL-ROUNDERS (Yusuf Pathan v John Mooney)

Talent show: Mooney arrived on the international scene with three expensive but, to him, priceless wickets when England came to Stormont in 2006. He also slogged 30 from 26 balls in Ireland's rearguard riposte, having come in at No 9. In the first IPL season, Pathan hit the competition's fastest fifty, off 21 balls, and hit 435 runs at a strike rate of 179 in Rajasthan Royals' triumphant campaign.

Job lot: Until his sons got rich, Pathan's father Mehmoodkhan housed his family in a one-room flat on the premises of a mosque where he worked. Mooney is an electrician who took a break from cricket after the 2007 World Cup (where he played two games) to complete his apprenticeship.

X-factor: Both are from cricket families - Yusuf was preceded in the Indian team by another bowling all-rounder, his younger half-brother Irfan, while "John Boy" Mooney's elder brother Paul also played for his country.

SPEED DEMONS (Zaheer Khan v Boyd Rankin)

Talent show: The towering Rankin, 6ft 8in, dismissed a series of top batsmen in the 2007 World Cup Super Eights including Ed Joyce and Michael Vaughan in a burst that awoke the English to his gifts. But Leftie Zaheer has taken 439 international scalps in the three formats.

Job lot: Rankin grew up working on his father's Bready farm but is now two years into a senior contract with Warwickshire, having exponentially increased his career earnings by earning about E80,000 from one season in the now-discredited Indian Cricket League. But he can't compete with Zaheer, who enjoys the same multi-million deals as his more famous team-mates from playing the game, or simply showing his face.

X-factor: A cocky Zaheer inflamed a bout of verbal jousting with the Australians during India's breakthrough Test series win at home last year. Rankin, who speaks with a slight stammer, seems way too nice to be a fast bowler but is being taught the ways of confrontation by his county mentor, Allan Donald.