IPL News

Karachi: Pakistan cricket legend Wasim Akram feels International Cricket Council (ICC) will eventually give official status to the breakaway Indian Cricket League (ICL). “The ICC should sanction ICL and I believe it will do that sooner than later,” said the former Pakistani cricketer. Akram pointed out that the current ICL season has attracted some well-known cricketers, especially from Pakistan, and the league’s matches are attracting huge crowds. “The sort of cricket that is being played in the ICL and the huge crowds its matches are attracting is a proof that the ICL will eventually get recognition,” said Akram.

Akram said some of the Pakistani cricketers playing in the league are still good for the national duty. “Players like Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Imran Farhat, Imran Nazir, Mohammad Sami can still play for Pakistan,” he said. Akram said Pakistan will suffer a lot after banning its premier batsman Mohammad Yousuf, who joined the ICL recently. “Yousuf is a great batsman and Pakistan will miss him once it starts playing the big games,” he said. Akram also spoke on the question mark hanging over India’s visit to Pakistan, saying that the series between the two countries is a very important one, especially for Pakistan.

There have been reports that India might decide to cancel the tour because of security concerns. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has conceded that it might happen in a ‘worst case scenario’ and says that it is open to the idea of hosting the series at neutral venues. However, such an idea has attracted negative response from critics and several former Test cricketers. But Akram said Pakistan should keep its options open. “We cannot live in complete isolation,’ he said. “If teams are forced to stay away from Pakistan because of security fears, then playing on offshore venues would be the only option and we will have to take it.” (IANS)

Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The Sri Lanka Cricketers’ Association (SLCA) has claimed Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), including chairman Arjuna Ranatunga, was informed during a meeting in June that some of the country’s leading cricketers had committed to the IPL for the next three years. However, in July, the SLC finalised a tour of England in 2009 - currently put on hold by sports minister Gamini Lokuge - despite assuring its cricketers during that meeting that they would keep a window free for the players’ participation in IPL till 2010. The tour announcement was made in July, a month after the meeting.

“We see this not as a one-off thing; we feel there is something more to it,” Graeme Labrooy, the SLCA secretary, said at a press conference in Colombo that was also addressed by Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankan captain, and vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara. “Unfortunately, even in 2008, when the players had been given permission by Sri Lanka Cricket to play in the first IPL, SLC tried its best to play a one-day series in Pakistan that would have led to a direct confrontation with IPL. So it is not just the 2009 England tour.”

Labrooy, Jayawardene and Sangakkara said they had decided to go public with their views after recent comments from SLC officials, including Ranatunga, questioned their commitment to playing for the country. Sangakkara said he was “disturbed” by the ongoing controversy over the players’ participation in IPL.

Labrooy said that SLC’s only demand from the players during the June 12 meeting was they commit to playing 75% of the provincial season. SLC then agreed to tour England for two Tests and three ODIs after the ECB suspended bilateral ties with Zimbabwe, who were due to tour in 2009. Labrooy said Zimbabwe were slated to play three ODIs but the ECB were keen to add two Tests to give the players some practice ahead of Australia’s visit. “We were prepared to compromise and play three one-day games but England wouldn’t want to go with that. They were keen on playing two Test matches.

“The key stakeholders of the game are the players. Knowing the players had signed contracts during the same period, SLC should have come back with the England proposal and sat with the players and the cricketers’ association and thrashed out the matter. It would have been resolved to a great extent and wouldn’t have gone so far.”

Sangakkara and Jaywardene, who were given permission by the SLC to speak at the press conference, said they wanted to clear the air over the issue and present their “side of the story”. “We always try as players to stay away from controversy, to do what is right and to play our cricket in peace,” Sangakkara said. “There are certain things that we can ignore and take and not worry about it and make any comments. But when we are accused of misleading the public and the government of Sri Lanka, it is time for us to come out into the open and state our side of the story.”

Jayawardene said the players had signed for IPL as individuals and not as part of the Sri Lankan team. “So therefore I am not the captain of this IPL group,” he said. “I am the captain of the Sri Lanka team and I am responsible for the decisions which I make on and off the field regarding the team. Above and beyond that, it’s not my responsibility. All these players have their own managers or agents and they have individually written to SLC and got permission and signed with IPL.”

Televisionpoint.com

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) has announced that the World Series, starting from November 23, will be played between four teams - ICL India, ICL Pakistani, ICL World and ICL Bangladesh. All the matches of ICL World Series will be played at Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad.

ICL has a prize money corpus of Rs 2.74 crore for this tournament. The winners stand to gain Rs 1.25 crore, runner-up will cash in Rs 75 lakh. The financial incentive for every win will be Rs 10 lakh. The incentive for individual performance during the matches will be Rs 2 lakh for Man of the Match.

Kapil Dev, chairman, executive board, ICL, said, “With ICL World Series, our promising domestic boys will face the toughest challenge of proving their cricketing credentials against three 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.”

Himanshu Mody, business head, ICL, said, “It is a full-filling experience to see the ICL make rapid strikes in terms of growing bigger and better in only its second year of operations. Multiple venues, additional teams, an improved player base and to top it all, a impressive prize money to be won, should make the tournament an enthralling experience for both - the players and cricket fans.”

R. Sathish, Inzaman-ul-Haq, Chris Harris and Habibul Bashar will lead the ICL India, ICL Pakistani, ICL World and ICL Bangladesh teams respectively.

Televisionpoint.com

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) has announced that the World Series, starting from November 23, will be played between four teams - ICL India, ICL Pakistani, ICL World and ICL Bangladesh. All the matches of ICL World Series will be played at Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad.

ICL has a prize money corpus of Rs 2.74 crore for this tournament. The winners stand to gain Rs 1.25 crore, runner-up will cash in Rs 75 lakh. The financial incentive for every win will be Rs 10 lakh. The incentive for individual performance during the matches will be Rs 2 lakh for Man of the Match.

Kapil Dev, chairman, executive board, ICL, said, “With ICL World Series, our promising domestic boys will face the toughest challenge of proving their cricketing credentials against three 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.”

Himanshu Mody, business head, ICL, said, “It is a full-filling experience to see the ICL make rapid strikes in terms of growing bigger and better in only its second year of operations. Multiple venues, additional teams, an improved player base and to top it all, a impressive prize money to be won, should make the tournament an enthralling experience for both - the players and cricket fans.”

R. Sathish, Inzaman-ul-Haq, Chris Harris and Habibul Bashar will lead the ICL India, ICL Pakistani, ICL World and ICL Bangladesh teams respectively.

• Graeme Labrooy, the players’ association secretary, has said Sri Lanka can take its proposed multi-million deal with the Indian board to the next level “once we get our relationship on the road”.
• Labrooy said the offer involved Sri Lanka’s participation in the Champions Twenty20 League for the next ten years and was put forward by the BCCI as a solution for the loss Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) would suffer due to the aborted England tour next year. However, he admitted SLC’s hardline stance against the Indian board has meant the offer couldn’t be discussed in detail during a meeting in Bangkok last month.
• “A delegation appointed by the sports minister went to Bangkok to confirm the offer but unfortunately we couldn’t take it any further,” Labrooy said. “At this meeting, the BCCI officials expressed their disappointment over the strained relationship that had developed between them and SLC in the past few months and wanted to know why. They didn’t say the deal is off; it is still on. Once we get our relationship on the road, we can take it to the next level.”
• Speaking about the offer, Labrooy said, “We went to the IPL and sought their views about the deadlock with England. They came up with a solution that if SLC was going to lose US$2 million revenue on the England tour they would compensate that loss by giving us a window [Sri Lanka[ in the Champions League from next year and for the next nine years where they would pay a sum of $3million to SLC and $1m as participation fee to the provincial side to improve its cricket.”

Cricinfo staff

Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman, has said that the Indian board is “very perturbed” at the allegations leveled against the tournament by Arjuna Ranatunga, who heads Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). In the first official reaction by the Indian board, which runs the IPL, Modi - who is also a BCCI vice-president - said Ranatunga’s “continuous blasting” of the Twenty20 league was “totally unjustified”.

Ranatunga had, during a press conference in Colombo, blamed the IPL for causing a loss of revenue to SLC due to the postponement of Sri Lanka’s England tour next year, and said it was unfair that national boards don’t benefit financially from the Indian tournament. He has earlier compared the IPL’s Twenty20 league to “instant noodles.”

Modi said the Indian board has the “best of relationships” with the Sri Lankan management and players, and is “looking for answers” as to why such “hostility exists”. The BCCI is “very perturbed by such statements continuously coming out of Sri Lanka” and has conveyed its concern over the issue, he said.

“Ranatunga is totally unjustified in his continuous blasting of IPL,” Modi told Cricinfo. “At a meeting held in Bangkok a few weeks ago where BCCI officials met the Sri Lankan management - both board and government representatives - the BCCI secretary (N Srinivasan) had clearly pointed out that it had no idea why such hostility exists. We are looking for answers. We hope to find a solution which is beneficial to both boards at the earliest. The officials were also quite perturbed that the situation had escalated to where it is today and were also looking for answers.”

Elaborating on Sri Lanka’s tour of England, which would have clashed with the IPL, Modi said, “We prepared our schedule as per the FTP, which is prepared years in advance, and we signed the players for a certain term based on that. Both Sri Lanka board officials and players were in the knowledge of the schedule. The ECB invited Sri Lanka without knowing that the players had already received a NOC to play for the IPL from the Sri Lankan board.

“Besides, if you go by the FTP, there was an additional tri-series scheduled between India, Sri Lanka and South Africa (during that period), which was to be confirmed by all parties. Therefore Sri Lanka should not have signed the MoU with ECB without first taking into account the above two issues.”

Modi said the IPL will continue to monitor Sri Lanka’s position and “take a call at the appropriate time” on whether it would impact new signings for the next season. Asked about Ranatunga’s plans to ensure that SLC profits from its players’ IPL contracts in the form of commissions, Modi said that the IPL never pays “any commissions to anyone”.

Dinesh Mongia has denied reports that his suspension from the ICL was due to alleged contact with bookies. “It has got nothing to do with match-fixing,” Mongia told the Indian Express.

On Monday Mongia and Chris Cairns, of Chandigarh Lions, were suspended on disciplinary grounds after it was learnt that Cairns, who arrived at the tournament with an ankle injury, had not disclosed his fitness status to the ICL. Mongia was suspended because he knew about Cairns’ injury in advance but did not share the information with tournament officials.

“The ICL officials interrogated me over Cairns’s ankle injury,” Mongia said. “They thought I was aware of it and did not inform them. I have given my explanation to them.”

Cairns’ lawyer, Andrew Fitch-Holland, also denied his client had been involved in match-fixing and said he was suspended for failing to report an injured ankle. “I’ve seen no statement [on match-fixing] from the ICL to that effect,” Fitch-Holland told the Daily Telegraph. “And I would be very surprised if you could find anyone at the ICL who would say that.”

Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman, has ruled out the possibility of official sanction to the Indian Cricket League (ICL) as it fails to meet the norms of ‘authorised unofficial cricket’. Modi added that it wouldn’t be possible to sanction the ICL because there is no window in the international calendar to accommodate the tournament.

Modi, who is also a BCCI vice-president, is part of a five-member ICC panel to review the laws governing official and unofficial cricket. He also emphasised that the BCCI isn’t just sidelining the ICL and that similar tournaments that come up will be treated the same way.

“Recognition comes with a lot of caveats and with lot of conditions and lot of rules,” Modi told the business news channel CNBC-TV 18. “I do not think this particular tournament (ICL) would be able to adhere to those conditions. If you look at a window, where is the window at the end of the day? We are having a tough time ourselves at the BCCI.

“It is not only the ICL. The ethos and the new tournaments that are coming up by corporates are for profit making. So it is not one issue. There are many issues that are involved in terms of deciding whether what official cricket or unofficial cricket should be and this is a mandate the ICC is looking into.”

Modi felt there was no place for parallel leagues in sport today. “In every country, in every sport there is a pyramid system for running and controlling a particular sport,” he said. “We need to ensure that that pyramid is intact and that from the ICC’s perspective whatever partnerships that the ICC and its members have with their commercial partners or with their players, is there to stay.”

Looking back at the first season of the IPL, Modi claimed that three teams, including the Kolkata Knight Riders, have broken even but added that it would take at least four years for all eight teams to break even. The top two sides - Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Superkings - will take part in the inaugural Champions Twenty20 League from December 3-10 and Modi said those teams will naturally benefit more.

“I think in year one, three teams will make money realistically,” he said. “But I originally predicted that they would all break even by year four. Rajasthan Royals (the IPL winners) have now qualified for the Champions League and they get a large purse and participation fees.”

Clarifying the rules for trading players for the second season - set to get underway in April 2009 - Modi said teams that have spent less than the US$ 5million cap for the first year will not be able to carry over the remainder for the next auction as it would give them an advantage over the others.

The IPL auction will take place in Mumbai on February 6 for franchises to purchase new players and an extra US $2 million will be given to each for that purpose. The maximum number of foreign players per team has been increased from eight to ten. Teams will now have the option of transferring players and Modi confirmed that that the transfer price and revenue sharing after the transfer will have to be mutually decided between the player and the team owner.

“Teams and club owners, when they bought the team in year one they bought blindly,” Modi said. “Since the owner has signed a three-year contract with a particular player, he will decide whether to put that player in the trading window and then he needs to get the consent of the player before putting him on the trading window. Then they have to decide mutually what the price is going to be. The base price must remain same as the auction price because the player can’t get anything less.”

Essel Sports Private Limited has written to Television Audience Measurement (Tam), India’s leading agency in this respect, seeking clarifications for certain inconsistencies in their reports on viewer ratings of the Indian Cricket League (ICL) tournament in its current season as also of other sporting events compared to the ratings published by aMap, another audience measurement company.

Essel Sports has analysed the ratings reports published by both agencies and are of the view that recent ratings by Tam of ICL matches as telecast on Zee Sports and Ten Sports are inconsistent with past trends, with its own figures for other sporting properties as also with figures reported by aMap. In particular, Essel Sports has requested TAM to explain why TAM ratings which show a distinct pattern of 1:2 to 1:3 as compared to aMap ratings for various sporting properties should not reflect the same pattern in respect of ICL matches alone.

Also in this message Essel Sports had forwarded to TAM an article which has recently been circulated on the internet on the subject of Television ratings in India. The article, casts serious doubts about the credibility of ratings in India. While Essel Sports hopes that the contents of this article are incorrect, it has expressed its concern to TAM that the matter be clarified because the article casts serious aspersions on the methods used for audience measurement in India which can impact television advertisement placement and pricing.