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ICL Willing To Release International Players From ICL Contracts

maverick12210 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:21:40 +0000

The Indian Cricket League’s organisers have confirmed that they are willing to scrap contracts should players wish to return to international action.

Players involved with the ICL have been barred from plying their trade at international level because the Twenty20 tournament is not officially sanctioned.

However with the ICL facing an uncertain future due to the economic slowdown, some players are keen to return to national teams while the Pakistani outfit, the Lahore Badshahs, have spoken about the idea of playing in America.

ICL director Kapil Dev has said the league would not hinder the players’ efforts.

”We are proud to give these players an opportunity to play for their countries,” Kapil told the Hindustan Times.

”Unlike some other boards, we are against the idea of denying players the chance to represent their country.”

The Board of Control for Cricket in India effectively banned the ICL because it rivals its own twenty20 competition the Indian Premier League (IPL).

ICL official Roland Landers confirmed some players had terminated their contracts.

”If players want to take this route to play for their countries, we will not restrict them,” he said.”We have never restricted them from playing anywhere anyway.”

The Pakistan Cricket Board is keen to include ICL players in their national team, but are awaiting clearance from the International Cricket Council.

PCB chairman Ijaz Butt said he had written to the ICC asking for clarity on whether players who have snapped ties with the ICL could return immediately to international duty.

The ICL hit the headlines last weekend after New Zealand’s Sunday News reported that New Zealand players involved in the ICL have received an e-mail from the league stating that they will be released from their contracts if they request for a termination. Justin Vaughan, the chief executive of New Zealand Cricket (NZC), told the paper if these players end their association with the unofficial league, they will be immediately available for selection to the New Zealand national side.

Earlier, there were also reports from Pakistan that a few of their ICL players, including Mohammad Yousuf, were planning to end their association with the unauthorised Twenty20 league and return to international cricket. The Pakistan board has also indicated it would welcome their ICL players back to the national fold if they cut all ties with the unauthorised league.

ICL Talks with BCCI Fails After a Farce

maverick12210 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:06:58 +0000

The Indian Cricket League’s (ICL) bid to get official recognition with the consent of the Board of Control For Cricket in India (BCCI) with a talk between ICL’s Business Head Himanshu Mody & Chairman Kapil Dev with The BCCI President – Shashank Manohar & BCCI Secretary – N.Srinivasan had Failed.

ICL players are barred from official matches by national boards and it had been hoped an agreement could be reached to lift this ban.

But a resolution could not be reached.

“There was a meeting at Delhi between officials of BCCI and ICL to see if there was any common ground,” board secretary N. Srinivasan said in a statement. “The talks failed and there are no plans for any further meeting.”

According to Cricinfo – ICL sources said the meeting between Kapil, Himanshu Mody, its business head, Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president, and Srinivasan took place at the coffee shop of the Taj Hotel in New Delhi and lasted barely 15-20 minutes. “It was ridiculous, the way the BCCI went about this meeting.”

ICL officials, meanwhile, described the meeting as a “farce”, and said the BCCI came up with “an offer during the meeting that was simply not acceptable”. “It didn’t look like the BCCI was ever serious to resolve the issue,” an ICL official told Cricinfo. “We will now have to look at other options, including the legal route, as the way forward.”

Kapil Dev, the ICL chairman, expressed his unhappiness at the Indian board’s attitude. “I understand the BCCI wants the ICL to be a closed chapter,” he told AFP. “That, let me reiterate, is not possible.”

Manohar met officials of the ICL for the first time since the league was set up in April 2007 after its request for recognition came up for discussion at the ICC board meeting in Dubai earlier this week. It was decided at that meeting that Manohar would provide a written report to the ICC board “in due course” after discussions with the ICL. Dave Richardson, the ICC’s manager for cricket operations, told reporters on Thursday that the BCCI wanted to meet ICL officials and hadn’t been asked to do so by the ICC.
The ICL believes that it has a strong case for recognition under Rule 32 of the ICC operating manual that deals with authorised unofficial cricket such as the Hong Kong Sixes event and the Stanford 20/20 in the West Indies. However, two senior BCCI officials – Manohar and Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman – are on a five-man ICC sub-committee that has worked on modifying the rules for official and unofficial cricket.

ICL Announces 20s World Series Tournament in Hyderabad

maverick12210 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:04:44 +0000

THE TEAMS

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) has announced that a 20s World Series Tournament, pitting the best Pakistanis and Indians playing in the ICL against a ‘best of the rest’ side will take place after the conclusion of the current 20s Grand Championship.

The tournament will be held in Hyderabad from April 9th to April 15th and will see the three sides, ICL India, ICL Pakistan, and ICL World play each other two times before a final.

Announcing the ICL World Series 2008, Kapil Dev, Chairman, Executive Board, Indian Cricket League (ICL) said, “The level of cricket at ICL is on an ascendancy mode. Throughout the Edelweiss 20s Challenge, we saw our boys come out with stand-out performances, which shaped the results of some high standard cricket matches.

“With ICL World Series 2008, our promising domestic boys will face the toughest challenge of proving their cricketing credentials against two of the mightiest teams in the world. These Indian players will be selected after a thorough selection process by the Executive Board along with the Selection committee, based on their growth as cricketers and respective individual performance. The Final Indian squad will be selected after the Edelweiss 20s Challenge’s second semi finals.”

“Currently the Lahore Badshahs have raised the bar as far as competitiveness goes. Now it is for the other two teams, especially ICL India to raise their standard of play to match up to the competition”, Kapil added.

Inzamam-ul-Haq will lead the ICL Pakistan side, which will be largely based around the unbeaten Lahore Badshahs side, and New Zealander Chris Cairns will captain the ICL World team. Coaches for the sides will be Moin Khan (Pakistan), John Emburey (World) and Steve Rixon (India).

The Squads:

ICL World XI: Chris Cairns (capt), Russel Arnold, Marvan Atapattu, Upul Chandana, Matthew Elliot, Andrew Hall, Chris Harris, Ian Harvey, Michael Kasprowicz, Jimmy Maher, Damien Martyn, Daryl Tuffey, Johan van der Wath, Lou Vincent (wk),

Coach – John Emburey

ICL Pakistan XI: Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Arshad Khan, Hasan Raza, Humayun Farhat (wk), Imran Farhat, Imran Nazir, Mohammad Sami, Naved-ul-Hasan, Naved Latif, Riaz Afridi, Shabbir Ahmed, Shahid Nazir, Taufeeq Umar

Coach – Moin Khan

ICL India XI: R Sathish, Abbas Ali, Love Ablish, Abu Nechim, Stuart Binny, Rohan Gavaskar, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Ibrahim Khaleel (wk), Thiru Kumaran, Ali Murtaza, Raviraj Patil, S Saravanan, TP Singh, TP Sudhindhra, Jamaluddin Syed Mohammed, G Vignesh

Coach – Steve Rixon

Tournament Schedule

Match Timings - All Matches begin at 19:00 hrs, (7 PM Indian Standard Time)

Venue - Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Basheerbagh, Hyderabad

Fixtures

April 9th, Wednesday: ICL India v ICL World
April 10th, Thursday: ICL Pakistan v ICL World
April 11th, Friday: ICL India v ICL Pakistan
April 12th, Saturday: ICL India v ICL World
April 13th, Sunday: ICL India v ICL Pakistan
April 14th, Monday: ICL Pakistan v ICL World
April 15th, Tuesday: Final

An Unofficial Guide of the Indian Cricket League – ICL

maverick12210 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:57:51 +0000

The Indian Cricket League is set to begin on November 30, with a host of familiar names taking part, though many are no longer playing international cricket. Here’s your guide to the unofficial Twenty20 tournament

What is the Indian Cricket League?
The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is a tournament set to run parallel to BCCI-run tournaments in India. Contrary to common perception, the ICL is not a breakaway league but an entirely new entity.

How did the ICL come about?
The roots of the ICL lies in the same issue as those of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket: discontent over TV rights. The Essel Group’s Zee TV believed it got a raw deal in the allocation of Indian cricket¹s TV rights the last time around when, despite making the highest bid, Zee was denied the rights for want of experience in sport broadcasting. The ICL – a joint venture between the Essel Group and Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services (IL&FS) – is seen by many as Essel head Subhash Chandra Goel’s attempt to get back at the BCCI.

The Essel Group announced the formation of the league on April 3, 2007, saying the BCCI had failed to create “a reserve pipeline of players”, and that the idea behind the league was to create an “ideal pool with killing instinct”. They were quick to add that the ICL was not in conflict with the BCCI, and the board would be free to draw from the ICL’s talent pool.

What is the Essel Group?
Essel is one of India’s leading business houses, with interests in media, packaging, entertainment, education, and infrastructure development among other areas. It had an estimated turnover of $2.1 billion for the last financial year. Zee TV, with a range of specialist channels – news to entertainment to sport – has a strong presence in the Indian electronic media market, and the group’s DNA is a new entrant in the English-language newspaper market.

How is the ICL different from other leagues, like, say, the Kanga League?
Unlike other leagues that are run or funded by the BCCI or other parties, the ICL involves television coverage, which is the BCCI¹s main source of revenue.

Who will play in the league?
The ICL currently comprises six teams: Mumbai Champs, Chandigarh Lions, Chennai Super Stars, Delhi Jets, Hyderabad Heroes and Kolkata Tigers. The ICL, with its talent scouts -Balwinder Sandhu, Pranab Roy, Erapalli Prasanna, Bharat Reddy, and Rajesh Chauhan, all former India players at various levels – has managed to assemble a core of overseas players who have either retired from international cricket or are disgruntled with their respective boards (or are simply in it for the money) , sidelined Indian internationals who have little hope of making it back into the national team, and domestic players, most of whom are nowhere close to national selection.

The biggest draws for the ICL at present are Brian Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Lance Klusener, Chris Cairns, Nathan Astle, Chris Harris, Abdul Razzaq, Azhar Mahmood, Imran Farhat, Nicky Boje, Vikram Solanki, Paul Nixon, Hamish Marshall, Dinesh Mongia and Deep Dasgupta.

After a lull in recruitment, several England cricketers – including Paul Nixon, Chris Read and Vikram Solanki – and South African cricketers such as Dale Benkenstein signed up fir the ICL In the fortnight before the teams for the tournament were announced.

Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf was one of the ICL’s star recruits but he later cancelled his contract and joined the officially sanctioned Twenty20 tournament, the Indian Premier League (IPL). Several other marquee names such as Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Stephen Fleming were initially reported to be interested in the ICL, but are now associated with the IPL.

What is the lure for players to join the ICL?
Although there are no official figures, it is speculated that on the lower end of the scale a player stands to earn as much as Rs 30 lakh ($72,600 approximately) a year, irrespective of how many matches he plays.

The ICL’s fees for ex-internationals are said to be substantially higher. Players from the English counties will earn, it is believed, £50,000 for a three-week stint.

The league has promised $1 million in prize money in the first season, half of which goes to the champion team. The Ranji Trophy champions last season took away Rs 50 lakh (US$127,000) by comparison.

Essel has promised to invest Rs 100 crore (US$ 25 million approximately) on the ICL to start with. It also claims it will look after the players better than the BCCI does and provide them job security.

While the prize money for the ICL seemed enormous at the time of the announcement, the wind was taken out of its sails by the IPL which offered US$ 3million as prize money. Also, in a move widely seen as a reaction to the ICL, the BCCI increased both the pay and the prize money on offer in domestic cricket.

What is the format of the tournament?
The inaugural tournament of the Indian Cricket League (ICL) will be held between November 30 and December 16 at the Tau Devi Lal Cricket Stadium in Panchkula, Chandigarh (four hours from Delhi). The tournament will comprise 20 Twenty20 matches, with the final on December 16. The dates for the tournament clash with India’s home Test series against Pakistan.

What is the standing of the ICL in international cricket?
The BCCI has not recognised the league, in consequence to which the ICC and most national cricket boards have refused to recognise it.

Indian players, current or former, who associate with the ICL in any capacity have been barred from availing any BCCI benefits – which also implies they will not be eligible for selection to the national team. The ICL, though, has moved court, contesting the BCCI’s right to represent “India”.

Several national boards have also threatened to ban their players for aligning with the ICL. However, the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), which is the representative body of first-class cricketers in England and Wales, has come out in support of the cricketers who have joined the ICL.

Where does the ICL go from here?
Not entirely clear. It’s still a surprise to some that the ICL has made it so far, got so many players on board and found a ground on which to hold the tournament. Indian television channels – and not just those owned by the Zee group – are running promos. There is even talk of a repeat tournament six months down the line.

Much will depend on the success – always a relative word, in this case even more so – of the first tournament. If Lara, Inzamam and the other big names land up and catch fire, if the concurrent India-Pakistan series starts to drift, the public will be more likely to watch. Meanwhile, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission’s (MRTPC) investigative wing is looking into the BCCI¹s refusal to share infrastructure with the ICL. If the courts conclude that the BCCI is indulging in monopolistic practices, they can intervene, much like they did when they fined the board for barring players from writing for newspapers and magazines. The coming months promise to be interesting, not necessarily in purely cricketing terms.

Brian Lara and Inzamam to Captain ICL Teams

maverick12210 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 08:51:17 +0000

Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq headlined the list of players as the Indian Cricket League (ICL) announced its teams for the inaugural tournament. Lara has been named in the Mumbai Champs side while Inzamam will play for Hyderabad Heroes.

Inzamam and Lara, along with Stuart Law, Chris Cairns, Marvan Atapattu and Craig McMillan will lead the teams.

The other international players include Abdul Razzaq, Taufeeq Umar and Shabbir Ahmed of Pakistan, Australia’s Ian Harvey, South Africa’s Johan Van der Wath, Lance Klusener, Nicky Boje and Andrew Hall, New Zealand’s Nathan Astle, Chris Harris and Daryl Tuffey and England’s Vikram Solanki. Sri Lankan players Marvan Atapattu, Russel Arnold and Upul Chandana are also on board.

The overseas players have been spread among the six teams – Mumbai Champs, Hyderabad Heroes, Chandigarh Lions, Chennai Superstars, Delhi Jets and Kolkata Tigers. The coaches for these teams are Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Balwinder Sandhu, Moin Khan, Daryll Cullinan and Michael Bevan.

“We have ensured the teams are balanced in every way and receive the best facilities in terms of coaching, showcasing their talent and exposure to international cricket,” Kapil Dev, the chairman of the ICL’s executive board, said. “I wish all the players best of luck for the tournament.”

The teams will be taking part in a practice camp in their respective cities.

The tournament begins on November 30 in Panchkula, a town near Chandigarh.

Teams:

Chennai Superstars:

Stuart Law (captain), Ian Harvey, Hemang Badani, Chris Read (wk), Russell Arnold, Sridharan Sriram, Shabbir Ahmed, V Devendran, R Sathish, Dakshinamoorthy Kumaran, Hemanth Kumar, Jamaluddin Syed Mohammed, Thiru Kumaran, J Hareish, V Sarvanan, R Jesuraj, Sanjeev Martin, G Vignesh, P Vivek.
Coach: Michael Bevan

Hyderabad Heroes:

Inzamam-ul-Haq (captain), Chris Harris, Nicky Boje, Abdul Razzaq, Azhar Mahmood, Anirudh Singh, Ambati Rayudu, S Shahubuddin, Stuart Binny, IS Reddy, Vinay Kumar, Ibrahim Khaleel, Kaushik Reddy, Bheema Rao, Alfred Absolem, Shashank Nag, PS Niranjan, Baburao Yadav, Zakaria Zuffri.
Coach: Moin Khan

Kolkata Tigers:

Craig McMillan (captain), Lance Klusener, Darren Maddy, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Rohan Gavaskar, Upul Chandana, Deep Dasgupta, Abu Nechim, Parviz Aziz, Shiv Sagar Singh, Boyd Rankin, Mihir Diwakar, Rajiv Kumar, Sayed Akhlakh, Subhomoy Das, Sujay Tarafdar, Pritam Das, Anshu Jain, Ali H Zaidi.
Coach: Daryll Cullinan

Delhi Jets:

Marvan Atapattu (captain), Taufeeq Umar, Niall O’Brien, Paul Nixon, Dale Benkenstein, JP Yadav, Mohnish Mishra, Abbas Ali, Ali Murtaza, T Sudhindra, Abid Nabi, Sachin Dholpure, Abhishek Tamrakar, Dishant Yagnik, Dhruv Mahajan, Abhinav Bali, Raghav Sachdev.
Coach: Madan Lal

Mumbai Champs:

Brian Lara (captain), Vikram Solanki, Robin Morris, Nathan Astle, Kiran Powar, Shreyas Khanolkar, Johan Van der Wath, Rakesh Patel, Avinash Yadav, Nantie Hayward, Subhojit Paul, Dheeraj Jadhav, A Sanklecha, Ranjeet Kirid, Pushkaraj Joshi, Suyash Burkul, Raviraj Patil, Nikhil Mandale, Sridher Iyer.
Coach: Sandeep Patil

Chandigarh Lions:

Chris Cairns (captain), Imran Farhat, Dinesh Mongia, Hamish Marshall, Andrew Hall, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Rajesh Sharma, TP Singh, Sarabjeet Singh, Ishan Malhotra, Daryl Tuffey, Sumit Kalia, Chetan Sharma, Manish Sharma, Luv Ablish, Bipul Sharma, Karanveer Singh, Amit Uniyal, Gaurav Gupta, Harpreet Singh.
Coach: Balwinder Sandhu