Indian Cricket League | ICL

What is the Indian Cricket League?

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is a cricket league set to run in parallel with BCCI-run tournaments in India. Contrary to common perception, the ICL is not a breakaway league but an entirely new entity.

How did the ICL come about?

The roots of the ICL lies in the same issue as those of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket: discontent over TV rights. The Essel Group¹s Zee TV believed it got a raw deal in the allocation of Indian cricket¹s TV rights last time around, when despite making the highest bid, Zee was denied the rights for want of experience in sport broadcasting. The ICL is a joint venture between the Essel Group and Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services (IL&FS), and is seen by many as Essel head Subhash Chandra Goel's attempt to get back at the BCCI.

On April 3, 2007 the Essel Group announced the league, saying that the BCCI had failed to create "a reserve pipeline of players", and that the idea behind the league was to create an "ideal pool with killing instinct". They were quick to add that the ICL was not in conflict with the BCCI, and the board would be free to draw from the ICL's talent pool.

What is the Essel Group?

Essel is one of India's leading business houses, with interests in media, packaging, entertainment, education, and infrastructure development among other areas. It had an estimated turnover of $2.1 billion for the last financial year. Zee TV, with a range of specialist channels - news to entertainment to sport - has a strong presence in the Indian electronic media market, and Dainik Bhaskar is the largest-read Hindi newspaper in the country.

How is the ICL different from other leagues, like, say, the Kanga League?

Unlike other leagues that are run or funded by the BCCI or other parties, the ICL involves television coverage, which is the BCCI¹s main source of revenue.

Who will play in the league?

The initial idea was to have six teams, each consisting of four overseas players, two Indian internationals, and eight juniors. What the ICL with the help of its talent scouts - Balwinder Sandhu, Pranab Roy, Erapalli Prasanna, Bharat Reddy, and Rajesh Chauhan - has managed to assemble is a cadre composed of overseas player who have either retired from international cricket or are disgruntled with their respective boards, sidelined Indian internationals who have little hope of making it back into the national team, and domestic players, most of whom are nowhere close to national selection.

The biggest draws for the ICL at present are Brian Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Imran Farhat, Abdul Razzaq, Lance Klusener, Nicky Boje, Damien Martyn, Deep Dasgupta, and Dinesh Mongia.

What is the lure for players to join the ICL?

Although there are no official figures, it is speculated that on the lower end of the scale a player stands to earn as much as Rs 30 lakh ($72,600 approximately) a year, irrespective of how many matches he plays. As of last year, a domestic cricketer in India earned about 40 per cent of that if he figured in every match his team played in a season.

The ICL's fees for ex-internationals are said to be substantially higher.

The league has promised $1 million in prize money in the first season, half of which is to go to the champion team. The Ranji Trophy champions last season took away Rs 50 lakh ($124,000) by comparison.

Essel has promised to invest Rs 100 crore ($23 million approximately) to start with. It also claims it will look after the players better than the BCCI does and provide them job security.

What is the format of the tournament?

In the inaugural year, the six ICL teams will play a 40-day Twenty20 tournament on a home-and-away league basis. In the coming years the number of teams is set to go up to 16, and there is also to be a 50-overs tournament.

When will the games be played?

This has either not been decided yet, or not revealed. It is believed the games will be played in October, which means they will clash with the start of one of India's biggest home seasons in recent times, which comprises a seven-match ODI series against Australia, followed by a tour by Pakistan. India go to Australia after these two series, which means that, regardless of when the ICL gets underway, it will inevitably clash with the Indian national team¹s schedule.

Where will they play?

The answer is primarily the same as the above. Because the actual format of the Twenty20 tournament is not known, the requirement of stadiums is not either. The ICL has identified a ground for the players to train at, though: Mayajaal, just outside Chennai, which is a part of an entertainment complex.

The presence of four Pakistani players in the ICL rules out the use of the premises of the Essel Group's amusement complex Essel World on the outskirts of Mumbai. In the past the government has failed, in the wake of threats by the Shiv Sena political party, to guarantee security to Pakistani teams scheduled to play in Mumbai. Pakistan last played a Test in Mumbai in 1979 and an ICC-recognised match in 1989.

The West Bengal sports minister has provided the ICL a window of opportunity, saying that their government will be open to allowing the ICL use of Eden Gardens, which is owned by the government, and whose lease with the state cricket association is about to expire.

What is the standing of the ICL in international cricket?

The BCCI has not recognised the league, in consequence to which the ICC has refused to recognise it. The boards of Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and Pakistan have also threatened to ban those of their players who join the ICL.

Indian players, current or former, who associate with the ICL in any capacity have been barred from availing any BCCI benefits - which also implies they will not be eligible for selection to the national team. The ICL, though, has moved court, contesting the BCCI's right to represent "India".

What happens to Indian players who have jobs with public-sector undertakings (PSUs)?

As many of the players are employed with PSUs like Air India and IndianOil Corporation for the sole purpose of playing club cricket, there was a fear that all of them would be dismissed because they would no longer be able to play cricket for their employers. The Delhi High Court intervened here, asking the PSUs to not dismiss their employees just because they had joined the ICL. The PSUs, though, have the option to not grant the players leave for playing cricket.

Where does the ICL go from here?

The first tournament is much awaited, not so much because it promises to be a competitive spectacle but because the odds are stacked heavily against its staging.

To help the ICL's cause, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission's (MRTPC) investigative wing is looking into the BCCI¹s refusal to share infrastructure with the ICL. If the courts conclude that the BCCI is indulging in monopolistic practices, they can intervene, much like they did when they fined the board for barring players from writing for newspapers and magazines. The coming months promise to be interesting, not necessarily in purely cricketing terms.