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NEW DELHI: In an audacious move that in part appears aimed
at capitalising on the frustration of the general public with
the errant workings of the Indian cricket board, media baron
Subhash Chandra today announced a breakaway cricket league
a la Kerry Packer in the late ‘70s.
The Indian Cricket League (ICL), Chandra announced, is an
initiative by the Essel Group and Infrastructure Leasing &
Financial Services Ltd (ILFS) “aimed at improving the
quality of cricket talent in India.”
The ICL will be the richest professional cricket league set
up in India, with an annual prize purse of $ 1 million. The
ICL is to be set with Rs 1 billion corpus and will initially
comprise six teams, which will be expanded to 16 after three
years, Chandra stated at a press briefing in the capital.
Though he said that the League would only be complementary
to the work of the BCCI, Chandra stressed the fact that the
cricket body had failed to promote the game in the right manner
by failing to nurture talent.
He said that according to the situtation till September last
year, the BCCI had only 20 players on its roles in regular
contracts and these included six 'A' class, eight 'B' class
and another six 'C' class players. Furthermore, there was
no representation from as many as 15 states in the cricketing
fraternity of the country.
The ICL would cover all the 35 states and Union territories
to find cricketing talent with a killer instinct which would
be nurtured to play at the national and international level,
Chandra said.
Nationwide infrastructure would be created under the ICL,
which will function as a separate corporate entity of the
Essel Group. Academies will be set up at the state level,
with emphasis on research and development, sports medicine,
and sports psychology to find budding players. The academies
would be residential in nature, headed by an executive board
and a director of the academy.
Initially, six teams would be trained and the figure may
later go up to 16 in the third year. They will be trained
for one-day internationals and for the twenty20 format in
time for the 'Twenty20 World Cup' in September this year.
Each Academy will have four international players, two Indian
players, eight budding players, a mentor, a media manager,
and a physio and dietician expert. He said if Indian players
could go play county cricket in Britain, international players
could also be drawn to playin India.
He refused to divulge the budget for the ICL or the percentage
of share-holding by Essel Group or the ILFS, which was collaborating
in the effort.
The academies will be governed by an executive board, a rules
committee, umpires and an ombudsman.
Asked about the relationship with the BCCI, he said that
the cricketing body was free to draw upon the talent discovered
by the ICL. He said the BCCI had already been approached to
co-operate in this effort, but no reply had been received
so far.
The aim at the macro-level was to help India grow from just
a cricketing country to a sporting nation, but the aim would
also be to get back the 40 per cent fall in cricket viewership
after the recent debacle at the World Cup. Chandra said he
would not deny for one moment that it was ultimately a business
proposition.
He said that the telecast rights would initially be offered
to Zee Sports, but may go to any other broadcaster who bid
for them.
He said the format of working for the ICL would be through
"discovery, diligence and display".
He said if the BCCI had failed to nurture cricket in a proper
manner, so had the International Cricket Council which had
only recognized ten cricketing nations of the 23 that played
the game.
The aim of ICL was to work to reverse the situation through
'passion, pride and price'. He noted that there were an estimated
25,000 cricket clubs in the country of which 1900 were in
Mumbai alone, but there was hardly any effort to find talent
from these clubs.
V Kapoor of the ILFS said that his firm had been in the field
of building infrastructure in the social sector for 20 years.
It was now entering the sports sector by collaborating with
the ICL.
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