Aus unwilling to spare Hussey, Hayden for the tournament; CA’s CEO Sutherland comes to India with a legal expert
Aus unwilling to spare Hussey, Hayden for the tournament; CA’s CEO Sutherland comes to India with a legal expert
MUMBAI: After all the rhetoric, the Champions Twenty 20 League is expected take concrete shape on Wednesday. The representatives of the boards involved in the multi-million dollar tournament will sit and hammer out a consensus on a few contentious issues, one of which seems access of the players to the Indian Premier League (IPL) teams.
Lalit Modi, the chairman of the governing council of the IPL, will chair the meeting which will be attended by Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland and Cricket South Africa CEO Gerald Majola. Participation of the original fourth member of the league — England and Wales Cricket Board — could not be ascertained but a Pakistan Cricket Board official revealed that it has been invited to send teams to the tournament with $ 10-million prize money, half of which goes to the winners alone. Jaipur, Mohali and New Delhi are the designated venues.
Cricket South Africa has already confirmed its participation in the tournament. On Tuesday, a CA spokesman told DNA that Sutherland was on his way to Mumbai to attend Wednesday’s meeting. “James is en route to India to discuss the proposed concept on which we have done much work, and of which we have been an enthusiastic supporter in principle since the concept was first discussed last year,” Peter Young, the communications manager of CA said.
The ECB has steadfastly been silent on its participation but sources in the Indian Board confirmed that the talks between BCCI and English board have not been yielding results. As has already been reported, ECB is contemplating to start its own version of Champions League but throughout Wednesday its officials were tight-lipped over the matter.
Meanwhile, PCB’s Shafqat Naghmi confirmed to this paper that they have received a formal invite from the BCCI to send their teams for the tournament to be held from September 29 to October 8. “We will be sending our teams to India,” Naghmi said.
He, however, disclosed that PCB representative would not be attending the meeting.
The exact agenda of Wednesday’s meeting could not be immediately ascertained but Peter Young of Cricket Australia claimed the CA is comfortable with the idea of IPL having priority access over state teams. Australia, however, do not seem to be in a mood to spare Mike Hussey and Matthew Hayden from the national duty for the Champions League.
The Australian batsmen are part of Chennai Super Kings team but simultaneously during the league, the Australian team, which will be in India for a Test series in October, are to play a warm-up game from October 2 to 5. The first Test between India and Australia starts in Bangalore on October 9.
“That is an important game for our preparation. We believe the national team has to get the top priority,” Young said. Sutherland will attend the meeting with his legal Manager Dean Kino.
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