Indian Cricket League

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The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is a proposed private cricket league that will run parallel to the existing cricket league managed by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The format of ICL will be Twenty20.

History

On 3 April 2007, Zee Telefilms (part of Subhash Chandra promoted Essel Group) announced that it would be partner with infrastructure major IL&FS to create a new ambitious cricket league, Indian Cricket League (ICL).[1] This league will have a prize money of $ 1 million for the winner. ICL was set up with a Rs. 100 crore (Rs. 1 billion) corpus, and would initially comprise six teams to be expanded to 16 in three years. This will make ICL the richest professional league in the country with an annual prize of $1 million (Rs. 4.4 crore). ICL has already signed a number of major players but is yet to reveal their names.

League Structure

Each team will be coached by a former India player and would comprise four international, two Indian and eight budding domestic players. Essel Group is also planning to set up cricket academies all over the country. BCCI has been assured that it is free to draw from ICL's talent pool. The league will be functional by July-August and will start with Twenty20 format matches in the run-up to the Twenty20 World Cup in September 2007.

Former international cricketers including Kapil Dev, Tony Greig, Dean Jones and others such as Kiran More have been hired as board members of the Indian Cricket League.[2] The board positions will be paid positions.[3]

Reasons for creation

Several factors have played a role in formulation of a cricket league which may run in parallel to the current official Indian cricket control body, BCCI.

India's poor performance in recent years

Essel group has sought to capitalise on the disappointment of Indian cricket fans with the poor performance of their cricket team in the World cup and the South African tour prior to that. Indian team's failure in World Cup has led to lower earnings to Cricket broadcasters, advertisers, cricket sponsors and travel & tour operators. These defeats also caused massive disappointment to India's millions of fanatical cricket fans.

The question of 'why can't a nation of 1 billion with millions of cricket players produce even a reasonably competent team' has been hotly debated across newspapers and news channels. One of the answers which has gained wide acceptance is that the BCCI, the cricket control body of India, has failed miserably in its job and needs a major overhaul in its working and organisation. Millions of Indian fans who hero-worshipped their cricket team are finding BCCI, with its image already mired with scandals, favoritism and political influence an easy target to blame for this debacle.

Zee Telefilms desire to create sports content

The league could help the country develop talent, as well as provide lucrative sports programming for Essel Group for Zee Telefilms, which lost out on the rights to broadcast all BCCI-sanctioned cricket matches in India through 2011.

In fact Essel Group had launched Zee Sports earlier with the anticipation of bagging the BCCI telecast rights in 2006. This was followed by Zee acquiring 50 percent in TEN Sports in November 2006 for Rs. 257 crore (Rs. 2.57 billion). This gave the company a few international cricket rights — West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. But these five-year rights were at their fag end.

Cricket played in India generates Rs. 1,000 crore (Rs. 10 billion) in advertising and subscription revenue and Subhash Chandra has been acutely aware of his company missing out on the lucrative cricket pie.

During his battle with BCCI and ESPN Star Sports for the five-year telecast rights in August-September 2004 in the Bombay High Court, Chandra was present every day for the hearings. Despite Zee bidding the highest at $307 million, BCCI and its then president Jagmohan Dalmiya denied him the rights.

The pain of denial has been with Chandra since 2000 when the ICC World Cup rights were sold to NewsCorp’s Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) for $550 million despite Zee bidding the highest at $650 million citing Zee's insufficient sports marketing experience.

In August 2005, Zee again emerged forerunner with a pitch of over $340 million while ESPN Star Sports, the other principal contender, is believed to have offered around $325 million. BCCI took the stance that Zee was not qualified as a specialist broadcaster and refused to consider Zee’s proposal. The matter expectedly went to court and Doordarshan emerged the beneficiary.

Chandra then tried the political route too and supported Sharad Pawar’s candidature as BCCI president against Dalmiya. Pawar emerged victorious but not Chandra. In the last round of bidding in February, last year, it was Nimbus who bagged BCCI’s telecast rights till 2011 for $613 million with Zee trailing at $513 million.

Since there was a Zee-Nimbus alliance before the bidding, media pundits thought Nimbus’ bid was a Zee front. But Nimbus chose to go its own way and launched its own sports network – Neo Sports.

Contention With BCCI

The BCCI has refused to recognise ICL as a cricket league, and has criticised Kiran More and Kapil Dev for joining ICL.[4] Kapil Dev's association with ICL is being seen as conflict of interest as he is the current chairman of National Cricket Academy, a BCCI owned cricket facility.[5] Subhash Chandra had earlier stated that the ICL will go ahead regardless of the BCCI stance.

Other Cricket Leagues

2007 Season

The inaugural season for the Indian Cricket League will begin in October 2007 with six club teams.

References

  1. ^ Cricinfo staff (3 April 2007). "Business mogul announces new cricket league". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2007-06-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ Cricinfo staff (14 May 2007). "Zee Sports denies signing of stars". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2007-06-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Khanna, Roma (14 May 2007). "BCCI's own now have a new job". CricketNext. Retrieved 2007-06-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Press Trust of India (13 June 2007). "BCCI shoots down ICL". Rediff.com. Retrieved 2007-06-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Shanbhag, Sudhakar (13 June 2007). "BCCI Not To Recognise Zee-Promoted Indian Cricket League". Worldcuplatest.com. Retrieved 2007-06-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Giri, Nisha (5 August 2005). "The ICC Is Not Against Procricket". Little India. Retrieved 2007-06-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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