Bat and ball / Frank Gregan / 22 September 2008 /

Frank Gregan looks at the ongoing mess involving all the acronyms: the BCCI, the ICL and the ICC...

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is due to commence again on the 10th October and old wounds will be re-opened off the square as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) attempts to make life as difficult as possible for those administering and participating in the tournament.

The ICL is a private league that was formed by media mogul Subhash Chandra after he drew a blank when trying to secure the television rights to the 2003 Cricket World Cup and the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy. When a decision was taken that his company, Zee, would not be able to broadcast any BCCI authorised event until 2011, Chandra took the decision to act. He decided to circumnavigate the system by forming his own league. The competition was held for the first time last year over a two and a half week period at the beginning of December.

The equivalent in this country would be Sky Sports losing out on the rights to the Twenty20 and establishing a rival event. Zee Sports have always been up front about their motive, their business head, Himanshu Mody explains, "They (BCCI) denied us cricket, so we created our own."

At first glance it looks like a childish and stubborn response but Chandra and his organisation have managed to put a positive spin on their actions. They portray themselves as the champions of Indian cricket affording opportunity to the young players trying to bridge the gap between the domestic and international game and investing in cricketing academies. That's a difficult philosophy to accept given that the BCCI stated that any Indian player competing in the ICL would never be eligible to play for their country.

Chandra does seem to have genuine cause for complaint against the BCCI who had previously awarded television rights to Zee's rivals NewsCorp and ESPN despite Zee bringing the most money to the table.

The ICC have had little choice but to support the BCCI although they have made it clear that they believe it to be an internal matter which should be resolved in India. There have been sanctions placed on players participating in the event but those have varied dependent on employment law in the player's home country. As a general rule, players participating in the ICL have been banned from all other domestic and international cricket. This has meant that the star international players in the ICL are at the end of their careers and answering a call from the highest bidder.

One nation that has elected to end the ban on domestic play is Sri Lanka who announced last week that players participating in the ICL will be allowed to take part in their home competitions but not international matches. In what has been a bloody and brutal battle between the two warring factions the BCCI may see this as the tip of the iceberg and an indication that other governing bodies want the issue resolved. The ICL will view the Sri Lankan decision as another step in their quest for official recognition.

From the days of Kerry Packer's world series of cricket in the late 1970s up to and including Sir Allen Stanford's 20/20 which has now gained official recognition from the West Indies Cricket Board, there have always been entrepreneurs keen to use the game for their own purposes whilst offering considerable sums of money to players by way of temptation.

It is surely time to allow market forces to determine what constitutes a successful cricket competition. India currently has two high profile Twenty20 leagues, the ICL and the IPL and given an audience of a billion cricket fans, who is to say that is unsustainable.

Players should be free to earn their living wherever they choose and not be subjected to bullying from the governing bodies. In August 2007 the secretary of the BCCI, Naranjan Shah stated, "Players who compete in the ICL will never be eligible to play for the country again. It is up to the players to decide what they want to do." A choice that Hobson would have been proud of!

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