English counties have without exception rejected an unjustified warning by IPL chairman Lalit Modi that they should not select ICL players in the domestic Twenty20 competition.
There is silent sympathy for the ICL in the English establishment, writes Ashis Ray from London
LONDON: English counties have without exception rejected an unjustified warning by Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi that they should not select rival Indian Cricket League (ICL) players in the domestic Twenty20 competition now underway in England.
15 of the 18 counties have around 25 ICL cricketers in their squads; and they are defiantly participating in the tournament. The IPL office bearer had threatened that counties who field ICL players will be ineligible to take part in the proposed $5 million Champions League (a misnomer, since what’s on the anvil is a knockout competition) later this year between the top two T20 sides from England, Australia, South Africa and the IPL.
A confrontation looms. The IPL’s views are obviously at odds with the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), since the rules for the Champions League are yet to be framed. Cricket Australia has been entrusted with this responsibility.
The questions being asked are: who owns the touted Champions League? If Cricket Australia accommodates the IPL, the disqualified cricketers and counties will almost certainly seek legal advice on the matter. A British lawyer has already indicated that anybody discriminating against ICL players will have a case to answer.
Meanwhile, other cricket boards have begun consulting each other on how to contain the menace of the BCCI, especially the rogue elements in it. The BCCI’s money muscle may postpone such moves reaching fruition for a while, but not indefinitely.
Since last year, there has been rising dismay in England that the unseemly squabble between the BCCI and the independently operated ICL, is casting a shadow over cricket in other countries. Shane Bond was granted permission by New Zealand authorities to participate in the ICL, but was thereafter, allegedly under pressure from the BCCI, ignored for selection for his country. The Kiwis have rather anaemically lost two back-to-back Test series with England.
The BCCI, first, attempted to thwart English domestic sides from hiring ICL cricketers for any form of cricket, but failed. The devastating judgement of 1977, when the High Court here prevented the English Test and County Cricket Board from sacking cricketers who had signed up with Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket — on the grounds that this restrains trade practices — is still stark in local memory. Neither the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) nor any county is prepared to overlook this precedent.
More worryingly for the BCCI, there is silent sympathy for the ICL in the English establishment. Australian Ian Harvey, man of the tournament in the first edition of the ICL, has ever since been effusive in his praise of the efficiency with which the competition was run.
In contrast, Dimitri Mascarenhas, the only England player to take part in BCCI’s Indian Premier League, has astoundingly remarked: “My experience of India is that they are bullies, they want to run world cricket.”
Besides, the IPL is no longer the only big money game in town. The ECB have wheeled in its own benefactor, Allen Sanford. Apart from staging an annual $20 million winner—take—all match in Antigua, this Texan billionaire is set to bank roll a T20 contest in England from 2010.
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