Jayawardene, Muralitharan sign for BCCI’s IPL

October 01, 2007 18:01 IST
The Indian Premier League, the ambitious cash-rich Twenty20 venture launched by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, announced the signing of eight current Sri Lankan cricketers, including captain Mahela Jayawardene and spin wizard Muthiah Muralitharan, for its inaugural edition.

Barely three days after the rebel Indian Cricket League released its second list of 18 players, the IPL responded by coming out with the names of its first high-profile signings, intensifying the recruitment battle between the two rival groups.

Apart from Jayawardane and Muralitharan, the dashing Sanath Jayasuriya, wicketkeeper-batsman Kumar Sangakkara and pacemen Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Zoysa, Farveez Maharoof and Dilhara Fernando are the other players to sign up for the inaugural season.

The IPL had already roped in the likes of spin great Shane Warne, former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming and Aussie speedster Glen McGrath for the Twenty20 tournament, seen as a counter to the Subhash Chandra-owned Essel Group’s breakaway League.

Lalit Modi, Chairman and Commissioner of the IPL said, “We at the IPL are committed to enticing an entire new generation of sports fans into the grounds by showcasing some of the best cricketing talent on offer from the world over.

“It is in line with this philosophy that we have signed eight of the current Sri Lankan squad. We are also in talks with some of the finest players in the international cricketing arena. I promise Indian fans that the IPL will truly be one of the finest cricketing leagues anywhere in the world,” he said.

Yousuf still with us: Indian rebel league

NEW DELHI (AFP) — The breakaway Indian Cricket League (ICL) said Friday Pakistan star batsman Mohammad Yousuf will turn out for them despite agreeing to play for his country.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said Thursday Yousuf, 33, had broken his contract with the ICL and signed up to represent the national team in the Test series against South Africa starting on Monday.

But an official of Zee Telefilms, which is bankrolling the multi-million-dollar rebel league, billed to start later this year, said Yousuf was still with them.

“All I can say is that Yousuf can always play for Pakistan whenever he is needed there, we have always maintained that,” Zee executive vice-president Ashish Kaul told local media.

“The ICL will never stop him from playing for Pakistan. But that does not mean that he has broken his contract with us.

“Right now, I can tell you that the contract is still on. He will play for the ICL as per the contract. If there is anything else to this, then we have not been told about it yet.”

The Indian and Pakistani cricket boards have said that any player who turns out for the ICL will be ineligible to represent the country in official cricket.

Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, opener Imran Farhat and all-rounder Abdul Razzaq also signed up to the rebel league.

Yousuf scored a world record 1,788 runs in 2006 and was voted the best Test player of the year at the recent International Cricket Council awards ceremony in Johannesburg.

He said Thursday he had signed a central contract with the Pakistan board after a lengthy meeting with its chairman Nasim Ashraf in Lahore.

“I have always wanted to play for my country and I can sacrifice my life for my country,” he told a press conference.

“I did not know about the clause in the Indian league contract that if both the league and Pakistan team matches are held at the same time I had to give preference to the league. I cannot agree to that,” Yousuf added.

The ICL, which plans to hold Twenty20 tournaments between city teams for the next three years, has been unable to fix a date for the first event, which was originally supposed to take place in October.

The Indian board, apparently in a bid to counter the ICL, has announced its own international Twenty20 league to be held in April-May next year.

ACA waiting game flops

Guwahati, Sept. 30: Time and tide wait for none. The Assam Cricket Association (ACA) has learnt this the hard way with three more senior players joining the rebel Indian Cricket League.

Unlike the quartet of Abu Naschim Ahmed, Parvez Aziz, Sujoy Tarafdar and S.V. Saravanan, the latest three ICL entrants — Syed Zakaria Zuffri, Arlen Konwar and Pritam Das — had given enough time to the ACA to do “something” for the welfare of the players.

The ACA decided to introduce graded contracts for players during its governing body meeting in Nalbari on September 9. Accordingly, a panel involving the topbrass and selectors was constituted to grade the players and work out the details of the proposed contracts.

“However, sources claimed that the panel never met in the interim even though retaining the remaining players and selecting a good team should have been the priority. The ACA’s insincerity was apparent. So, I could not afford to waste the opportunity at hand,” said Konwar, who had been flown back from Hyderabad earlier this month to participate in the September 9 governing body meeting as a players’ representative but was left cooling his heels in a city hotel instead.

“Some ACA office-bearers came back in the evening to tell me that contracts would be introduced. This sounded like the promises that are made from time to time but never kept,” he said.

Konwar finally took the plunge along with Das. The ACA’s contention for the delay was that it was busy with preparations for the November 5 India-Pakistan one-dayer. Those in the know, however, said that the ACA should have given equal attention to the contracts issue, more so when Konwar had said that he and other players did not expect the association to match the ICL’s offers.

“Some might argue that there was no guarantee that the players would not have left had the contracts been finalised. But the point here is that once the announcement was made the ACA should have acted fast to at least show that they had tried to retain the players. Unlike other sports associations they cannot even cite lack of funds as an excuse,” one of the sources pointed out.

ACA insiders said that an emergency governing body should be convened to find out what went wrong and who is responsible for the delay.

Cricket South Africa to ban ICL recruits

October 1, 2007

Gerald Majola: “Once they have played even one game in the ICL tournament, it’s over “

Cricket South Africa has warned players joining the Indian Cricket League (ICL) that it will not only ban them from playing for South Africa but will also keep them out of domestic cricket.

“We view them as rebels,” Gerald Majola, the CSA chief executive, told Beeld, an Afrikaans newspaper. “They have joined a breakaway organisation.”

But Majola added that the players could return to South African cricket if they cancelled their contracts with the ICL. “Once they have played even one game in the ICL tournament, it’s over and they will never be allowed to play in South Africa again.”

Former internationals Nicky Boje and Lance Klusener have signed with the ICL and there are rumors that Andrew Hall, who quit international cricket last month and signed a three-year deal with Northamptonshire, could be also be joining the league.

CSA’s decision follows that of New Zealand Cricket and the Indian board to ban players who joined the ICL. Apart from that, CSA, along with the boards of India, England and Australia had announced the launching of the Champions Twenty20 League to be played among the top domestic sides starting October 2008.

ICL signs on more cricketers

MUMBAI: Two weeks ago, when the BCCI announced its new premier league, it seemed as if it had taken the wind out of the sails of the much-hyped Indian Cricket League (ICL), floated by media baron Subhash Chandra.

But now, the ICL has once again sputtered to life. On Friday, Kapil Dev, chairman of ICL’s executive board announced that they had signed on former New Zealand players Chris Cairns, Chris Harris, Nathan Astle, Hamish Marshall, Darren Maddy and Pakistani cricketer Azhar Mahmood, along with 12 other domestic players.

Of these six cricketers only Maddy is still actively playing cricket at the highest level, while the rest have either retired or fallen out of favour with their respective selectors.

Marshall is said to have refused a contract by the New Zealand Cricket board recently as he was looking to pursue a career in county cricket in England. Cairns, Harris and Astle on the other hand, have been out of the New Zealand team for more than a year now, while Mahmood has played just four matches for Pakistan since 2004.

The 12 Indian cricketers include two former India international players S Sriram and Nilesh Kulkarni and a string of Ranji players like Abu Nachem, Amit Uniyal, Aniruddh Singh, Gaurav Gupta, Love Ablish, Mihir Diwakar, Rakesh Patel, Abid Nabi, Kiran Powar and Pritam Das.

This current round of hiring pushes up ICL’s tally to 81 players. If the rebel league is to stick to its original plan to play its first set of Twenty20 matches in mid-November, Kapil Dev will need to pick at least another 25-odd players over the next few weeks. Of these, six may be overseas players. The league will consist of six teams of 14 players each, plus a set of extra players to double up in case of injury.

The new announcement may not just yet add sizzle to ICL’s plans. IPL had stolen the thunder ever since it announced its star-studded line-up, which includes three former Indian skippers Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, as well as Anil Kumble, Shane Warne, Glen McGrath and Steven Fleming. Plus, with a prize money of $3 million to boot — three times more than ICL — it looks like IPL is streets ahead at the moment.

The pressure will now be on Kapil to sign on a few marquee names from the international arena. But from all accounts, he has been able to snag only those who have already retired from active cricket.

All the domestic players who have already signed on with the ICL are currently participating in a training camp in Chennai at the Mayajaal ground on the outskirts of the city.

“These signings are in line with our objective of providing the best platform for young cricketers from all corners of India to play alongside the superstars of international cricket, learn the tricks of the trade from them, and gain confidence to excel,” explained Mr Dev.

To reiterate its commitment to improve cricket infrastructure here, ICL has once again announced that it will create cricket academies across the country, which will be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and headed by international/domestic coaches under the supervision of a national director of academies.

No deadline for coach appointment: BCCI

Mumbai, Sept. 29 (PTI): The Cricket Board postponed yesterday a selection meeting at Bangalore and made it clear that it was not fixing any deadine to appoint a new coach after Greg Chappell’s refusal to extend contract following India’s ODI World Cup debacle.

“We are not going to say when he’s (coach) going to be appointed. It will be done in reasonably quick time,” said BCCI Treasurer, N Srinvasan, after saying that the coach.

“Our president (Sharad Pawar) was not available for the meeting. We have not met yet and gone through any applications for the job that have been received by us,” he said.

“There has been little time. Players have just come back from England and then from the World Twenty20 Cup. We have back-to-back matches against Australia,” he added.

Since Chappell’s exit, India have managed with stop-gap arrangement with Ravi Shastri, who was Friday appointed by the BCCI as chairman of its National Cricket Academy, Chandu Borde and Lalchand Rajput – all former Test players – acting as the team’s cricket managers on different tours.

Rajput has been retained as the cricket manager for the seven-match series against Australia commencing at Bangalore today after successfully doing the job with triumphant Indian team in the twenty20 World Cup in South Africa.

Pressed further on the issue the BCCI official quipped “The country should be happy with the team doing well and the fans are eagerly looking forward to the series (against Austraia)”.