The commencement of the rebel Indian Cricket League(ICL),will clash with India’s home Test series against Pakistan in December.

“The tournament will have 20 matches from November 30 to December 16,” a statement from the organisers was quoted in the reuters on Tuesday.

The rebel league, which was delayed by a month due to logistical problems, will be played in Chandigarh.

The high-profile ICL, which has attracted top international players, hasn’t been recognised by ICC while the official cricket body in India-BCCI,
will launch its own multi-million dollar version from next year with the support of other major boards, including those of Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

The Indian Cricket League (ICL), an Essel Group venture, today announced that the inaugural ICL 20-20 championship comprising 20 matches will take place from November 30 to December 16, at Tau Devi Lal Cricket Stadium, Panchkula, Chandigarh.

The announcement came after an executive board meeting held in Chennai today. There will be 15 league matches wherein all teams play each other once, followed by 5 classification matches. The final preceded by the 5th/6th place and the 3rd/4th place deciding matches will take place on ‘Super Sunday’ December 16.

Kapil Dev, executive board chairman, Indian Cricket League said: “The ICL 20-20 Indian Championship will be held as promised, later next month at Chandigarh. We are working hard to deliver a very exciting tournament for Indian viewers.

I am confident that the public in this country will witness for the first time a fully professionally run and well-organised extravaganza of cricket.”

ICL had a tough time in getting a venue for the matches. Kapil Dev in an earlier statement said the tournament, originally scheduled for October, has been moved to November as cricketers would be free from international duty by that time.

The league has signed up 18 new cricketers — six international and 12 domestic players. Among the first domestic cricketers to join the league were Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, J P Yadav, Deep Das Gupta, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, T Kumaran and Ambati Rayudu.

The international players who have signed contracts to play for ICL include Chris Cairns, Chris Harris, Nathan Astle, Hamish Marshal, Darren Maddy, Azhar Mahmood, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Imran Farhat and Abdul Razzaq, former South African all-rounders Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje.

NEW DELHI - India’s new-found fascination for Twenty20 cricket has turned into a tug-of-war as money, power and court battles overshadow the country’s most popular sport. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is determined to be the sole crusader of the lucrative crowd-pulling Twenty20 format in cricket-mad India despite its secretary Niranjan Shah earlier describing Twenty20 as a “waste of time.”

This apparent change of heart had nothing to do with Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s young Team India winning the inaugural Twenty20 world championships in South Africa in September, an event Indian officials once strongly opposed.

It had everything to do with the unveiling in May of the unofficial multi-million-dollar so-called rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL), bankrolled by the country’s largest media group, Zee Telefilms.A rattled BCCI banned cricketers signing up to the ICL from representing the country, forcing the rebel body to file an ongoing case challenging the BCCI’s monopoly over the sport.

The BCCI also drew up its own three-million-dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) with the blessing of the International Cricket Council and supported by boards around the world.And so began a game of oneupmanship, lapped up greedily by the media and showing no signs of abating with no apparent concern for the effects it could have on players, their international commitments and the sport in India.

The Zee-backed ICL presented India’s only World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev as its chief executive, while the BCCI’s IPL paraded the country’s other legend, Sunil Gavaskar, and popular commentator Ravi Shastri as members of its governing council.At the moment the IPL is seemingly winning the battle in terms of getting star players to sign up.

It says it has on board Test captains Graeme Smith of South Africa, Daniel Vettori of New Zealand, Shoaib Malik of Pakistan and the entire Team India.The IPL also persuaded ICL’s main draw, Pakistani star batsman Mohammad Yousuf, to break his contract with the rebel league and sign up with the official body, prompting the ICL to serve legal papers on the player.

The best the ICL has managed so far are retired international stars, headed by West Indian great Brian Lara and Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq, along with a slew of domestic has-beens.Both leagues — despite obvious deep pockets — have found it easier to sign up big names than finalise start dates and other details of the events they plan to stage.

The only real concrete fact is that both leagues will feature Twenty20 matches between franchised teams made up of international players and young promising Indians.The ICL may begin in November and the BCCI is looking to start the IPL in April next year, although like much in this saga, nothing is certain.

The beleaguered Asia Cup limited-overs tournament, already put off twice before and now scheduled to be held in Pakistan in April-May, faces an uncertain future if the IPL is held at the same time and there are concerns the players may end up playing too much cricket.Unsurprisingly, not everyone is impressed at the potential impact the leagues could have on cricket.

“If the proto-typical young cricketer is happy signing up for IPL franchises and making his money there, is he going to bother playing five-day cricket?”, veteran columnist Ashok Malik said.Cricinfo, the game’s leading website, said: “Money could make Twenty20 the most lucrative form of cricket any aspiring cricketer wants to play.

“So what that would do to cricket skills and talent pools for longer versions of the game is anyone’s guess.“Also, it could change the way we look at cricket. Teams based on regional affiliations will be replaced by teams based on commerce, players playing not for local pride but for top dollar.

“That’s how football has grown in the last 20 years — and not everyone’s happy with the shape it’s in today.”

KARACHI: Pakistan’s cricket chief Nasim Ashraf believes the Indian Cricket League (ICL) cannot stop Mohammad Yousuf from playing for his country after reports surfaced on Saturday suggesting that the organisers of the breakaway league are preparing to take the star batsman to court.

“The ICL has no case against Yousuf and they cannot stop him from playing for Pakistan,” the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman told ‘The News’ on Saturday. “Yousuf did sign a contract with them but later he changed his mind and cancelled it. As a player he had the right to opt for any offer which he thought was better for him,” added Ashraf.

There were reports that the ICL organisers have decided to sue Yousuf, one of the world’s best batsman, after he cancelled a contract to play in their league scheduled to be held later this year.

Yousuf, 33, was one of the biggest stars roped in by the ICL this summer. But the PCB, which had earlier announced that any Pakistani player joining the ICL will be banned, lured him with handsome financial rewards that included a US$100,000 bonus for signing a central contract last month after which Yousuf decided against honouring his ICL deal.

He instead opted to sign a contract with the official Indian Premier League to be launched by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) next April. Stung by Yousuf’s decision to abandon them, the ICL organisers sent him a show cause notice earlier this month but the player decided against responding to it. Now, the ICL is preparing to take him to court and there are fears that a legal battle might be a problem for Yousuf who is to serve as the backbone of Pakistan’s batting line on an important tour of India starting from November 1. Pakistan are to play five one-dayers and three Test during the tour.

However, Ashraf rejected the impression that the ICL can use any legal ways to stop Yousuf from playing for Pakistan in India later this year. “The ICL people are claiming that they will not stop any of their recruits from playing for their country then how can they stop Yousuf from representing Pakistan,” he asked. “The ICL did have a clause in their contract that said that a player cannot give priority to national duty over the ICL but now they say that the clause has been removed and they claim that their players can leave the league to play for their national teams whenever required. I believe in such circumstances they have no justification to stop Yousuf from playing in India.”

The PCB chief said that even if the ICL opted to go to court, Pakistan will strongly defend their player. “We will fully defend Yousuf, if he is taken to court using all legal means,” he said adding that the Board’s lawyers are confident of winning if any case is filed in the court by the ICL.