Six and Out - Some Serious Cricket

The Deal with IPL and ICL

by Dinsa Sachan on September 19th, 2007

Conflicts make things interesting. Like in cricket, the latest one has propped up between ICL and IPL.

In case, you are new to the terms, ICL stands for Indian Cricket League, Essel Group India’s brainchild (remember Zee TV?), while IPL, BCCI’s rebut to ICL, stands for, well you guessed it, Indian Premier League.

Here’s ICL in a nutshell:

1. They start with six teams, expandable to sixteen in three years (that if they actually survive), which compete for the trophy.

2. Each team has two divisions, a first and a second..

3. Both domestic and international players participate.

4. Initially, they play Twenty20, but expected to try their hand at ODIs too.

They recently disclosed the names of 51 cricketers that have joined them. Before that, they had been shelling out the names in installments to create shockwaves across the media and bag big spots on the sports pages every week. They have got themselves some big guns, nevertheless. Kapil Dev, the former Indian skipper and legendary all-rounder, heads their executive board, which also has the likes of Kiran More, Dean Jones, and Tony Greig among others. Among players, the retired Brian Lara, Dinesh Mongia, the pseudo-retired, are some of their trump cards. Lara, however, isn’t on their website’s Player List. Phew. So what was the “we’ve got Lara” hullabaloo all about?

Anyway, another interesting dimension was added to the titan fight when BCCI announced that players who had joined ICL would never be allowed to play for the national team. Also, Kapil Dev was expelled from the National Cricket Academy. The ICL, however, has managed to nudge player’s fear of never playing for the national side aside by pouring pretty penny into their bank accounts. The ICL hasn’t officially announced their endorsement fee or payment plan, but you know, there are rumors that the packages are worth several millions.

They are yet to secure an ICC favor, which isn’t likely to happen anyway, and as you probably know, they are the BCCI’s eye-sore, and even prompted them to come up with IPL in a hurry. IPL’s structure hasn’t been revealed officially, but there are rumors that it has been based on the European football leagues’ pattern.

So that’s about it.

I am sure, you have, like me, a lot of questions. The first in line, definitely, is why in the world ICL had to come up with this idea of a cricket league. They hail from a broadcast media background, after all. Why not sport a new channel, huh? Whatever, here’s their version of the why:

Cricket in India is a national obsession and a religion. It is a game which governs national pride and has fantastic following. Cricket is also the game where we are the closest to becoming a champion side. BCCI, the governing body of cricket in India provides contracts to just about 20 players which does not produce a high quality large bench strength. A reserve bench strength can be produced by lifting the level of domestic cricket. This will help the youngsters acclimatize to the rigors of International cricket.

Read more: http://www.indiancricketleague.in/abouticl.htm

I personally reckon that BCCI’s IPL answer was too quick a strike-back and not well thought-out, of course. But I guess, that’s the way with Indians.

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