Subhash Chandra’s Indian Cricket League (ICL) which kick started its first season in November, will host 5 tournaments in 2008. The announcement was made today by Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra and Kapil Dev, chairman of the executive board, ICL.

The second season of ICL will roll-out in February and will include 50-over matches as well.

” It is indeed heartening to see the response Indian Cricket League (ICL) has been able to generate in India and across the globe. After a successful launch in keeping with the promise made, ICL is proud to announce its cricket calendar for the coming season.” ICL conducted its first 20-20 championship at the Tau Devilal cricket stadium at Panchkula, Chandigarh from November 30 to December 16, Subhash Chandra, chairman, Essel Group said.

ICL’s 2008 event calender will begin in February with a 50-over tournament featuring domestic cricketers, to be followed by a Twenty20 triangular series. In March-April, ICL will organise the ICL Grand Championship in which 8 teams will participate in a Twenty20 tournament. By April- May, the league will open academies across cities. September-October will witness the ICL Invitation Cup (a 20 over a side tournament in which 8 teams will participate). The season will conclude in November-December with the second edition of ICL Twenty20 Indian Championship.

On December  Daniel Lane wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that “ICL has suggested it will up the ante by taking the modified version of the game to North America, where there are a large number of students and workers from many of the cricket -playing nations like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.”

The American cricket fan has seen many such announcements made by ICC member countries in the past year about USA potentially hosting neutral venue cricket. None of which materialized. But this latest announcement is by ICL which, quite literally, is not in the same league.

At Dreamcricket, we think that the first major Twenty20 tournament in USA is no longer a mere dream, but a practical eventuality. There are strong signs to indicate that 2008 would be a turning point for American cricket.

ICC vs Private initiatives

According to ICC, international cricket tournaments never got off the ground in USA owing to problems such as ground unsuitability or scheduling issues. Cricket’s guardian in USA, the USACA, has struggled to conduct domestic tournaments, leave alone bringing international competition. With USACA’s suspension, American teams were disallowed from international cricket altogether.

The game’s governing bodies, and that includes ICC and BCCI, have made a lot of money in USA through the sale of broadcasting rights to the lucrative American market. Regrettably, and for reasons that are well documented, not much of that money was spent for the development of the game in this country.

Private initiatives have had more success with bringing some first-rate competitive cricket into USA. ProCricket is a case in point, although in retrospect, it was an idea ahead of its times.

In 2006, a West Indies team comprising several international players played a USA All-Star team at Floyd Bennett Field. This too was a private initiative. 2007 saw a huge increase in the number of overseas players at the LA Open 2020 – another privately organized tournament.

Granted, for-profit initiatives are not ‘developing’ cricket in the strictest sense of the word, but they are giving American cricketers an opportunity to test their skills against some really good competition. These events, in most cases, were efforts by the passionate few.

How the West can be conquered?

The economics of cricket in USA necessitate that the sport’s promoters have two things in abundance. Unlimited supply of cash. The second factor is the same for any sport. It is the ability to reach a sizable TV audience.

ICL is a private entity with bottomless resources. Even with that, ICL has found that the Indian market is a hard one to crack. BCCI made sure that ICL’s launch would be amidst turbulent weather. ICL was also handicapped by the fact that Zee Sports is not widely available in India. From all accounts, the stadium audiences are having a great time. If Zee is to be believed, TV ratings too are better than what one might expect for a domestic cricket tournament.

ICL appears to be having an easier time in USA. When I landed in New Jersey on December 6th, I was surprised to find that most of my cricket loving friends in USA were following the ICL action. Of course, I have no market research to back this opinion. But I suspect it has something to do with the TV watching habits of the cricket fans here.

Until recently, cricket has been the exclusive preserve of pay-per-view TV, costing $100 or more per series. Over the last three months, Zee Sports has significantly altered the economics of watching cricket in USA.

As a subscription channel, Zee Sports costs less than $150 for the entire year! Viewers watched Australia in India, Pakistan in India and ICL, all for less than $25 in the recent weeks on Zee Sports USA.

Unlike in India where the India-Pakistan test series was easier to access than ICL (since India vs Pakistan was on terrestrial network), viewers in USA were able to watch both India-Pakistan and ICL on the Zee Sports channel. This ‘one channel fits all’ strategy turned into a blessing for ICL.

Many who do not have Dish watch their cricket on the computer. Several friends I know watch their satellite feed through broadband legally via Slingbox! Naturally, as the economics of legal streams has changed, the cost of receiving illegal streams too has dropped. Zee Sports is therefore cheaper to access via the PC as well.

All of this has led to Zee and ICL getting greater traction in USA.

Great. But what does this have to do with ICL coming to USA?

From what I see, Zee Sports has quickly built up a subscription base in USA. Fans want their cricket – and if Zee can give them test cricket, and T20 cricket blended with Bollywood entertainment, that is something to die for.

Why should the party stop on December 16? ICL has a lot of players who are on a retainer and they have a TV channel which is thirsty for content! Already ICL has said that they will have another tournament in March.

Zee’s strategy has always been to popularize a program and then take it on the road, live entertainment walks hand in hand with TV entertainment. Sa Re Ga Ma is a case in point. Zee conducts auditions in USA each year.

ICL’s talk of bringing a ‘modified version of the game to North America’ is not all talk. I am sure they will walk the talk!

Zee knows first hand that they can fill a stadium in USA if they combine a T20 match with a live performance by Kareena Kapur or Shah Rukh, cheerleaders in tow! Song, dance, and cricket. This is complete family entertainment! Throw in a TV broadcast and the already sound economics starts to make perfect sense!

But there are no grounds in USA! And scheduling?

ICL has dough to fix up a ground in no time. Take the Tau Devi Lal Stadium, for example. In Stephen Brekley’s words, ‘this scruffy, uninviting little ground in the shadow of the Himalayas’ has been done up in grand style by ICL for their inaugural match.

As if on cue, the USA cricket scene too has changed in the past several months. A stadium is now available in Florida. Granted, it needs sprucing up, but that is being addressed.

Mercifully, ICL has no scheduling issues to worry about. Its players will gladly compete for the prize money in USA.

IPL on the other hand is still ironing out its strategy. TV rights for IPL have not yet been awarded, and this makes it even more compelling for ICL to move fast in USA.

As for the ICL players not being very high caliber, that may be an issue in India, but it certainly is not an issue here in USA. Most would prefer to watch Sangakkara, but Atapattu will do just fine! Any cricket is better than no cricket at all!

Post script: On February of 2007, I wrote the following in my Dreamcricket column comparing the just concluded Super Bowl and Ranji Trophy events -

“If yesterday’s big game between Colts and Bears is the ‘world championship of football,’ then the Ranji final match between Mumbai and Bengal must certainly be its cricket equivalent. But it is not!” The point of the article was that a hypothetical championship cricket match between Mumbai Marathas versus Bengal Tigers should have resulted in as much hysteria as the Colts vs Bears Super Bowl game if marketed correctly.

Writing about the format, I predicted that “although Ranji Trophy is the premier domestic tournament, a shorter version of the game is a better candidate for the ‘Super Bowl of cricket.’ Some might wish for a more radical format like Twenty20.”

This was in February, 2007. Obviously, so much has happened in the cricket world during the year that it seems like a blur! No, I could not have predicted the ICC World Cup disaster, the tremendous success of the ICC Twenty20 Championship, and the intervening announcement of the Indian Cricket League by Subhash Chandra of Zee and the announcement by BCCI about the ‘official’ IPL league.

It is amazing to see that within a year of writing that article about the need for a Super bowl of Cricket, we have one such event (ICL) in the hand and another (the IPL) in the bush!

It’s getting cold up in the north and for me it’s nice to be playing cricket in India in cool climes. But once we get on to the field it does not really affect the way we play our game.

At the start of the Indian Cricket League, the first aim of the Kolkata Tigers was to make the semi-finals and as such our first mission has been accomplished. It is also nice for the boys that we have topped the group.

At the same time, it’s just the first step, which now gives us a chance to win the tournament. We are all ready to put in the hard work and are surely looking towards being the champions.

Just like us, the other teams in the semi-finals have also warmed up and the competition now will only get hotter. There are a few skilful players in every side but for us it is important that we only worry about our own game and look at the best we can do rather than begin worrying about the opposition. We need to do the basics well and bother about ourselves.

It’s Twenty20 cricket and in this form of the game it takes one person to have a good day and someone to bowl well to change the course of a match. Keeping that in mind our main focus would be to keep trying hard in the field and giving things our best shot.

With the progress of the tournament, the wickets are also getting better and one can be assured of thrilling contests.

Among the big guns, Craig McMillan did a fine job for us the other night against Hyderabad Heroes and so did Darren Maddy.

We also have some good youngsters in our team and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala is one such tremendous little batsman, who is also a great fielder. If given the opportunity, he’s one for the future.

We also have some young fast bowlers in our team who will surely dazzle in the remaining games and in the future if given good guidance will have the world to go and play the game for a living.

For now, two big games are coming up and the excitement is guaranteed. Kolkata Tigers surely do not want to be left out.

ICL is here to stay. Buoyed by the success of Twenty20 games in Panchkula the Indian Cricket League is planning to host another tournament in March next.An agency conducting survey regarding the viewership of programmes being run on various TV channels found out huge interest generated by the ICL matches among cricket buffs. “While the current Indo-Pak series got 2 rating points, the ICL matches got 1.8 rating points,” Essel Group’s executive vice-president, Ashish Kaul, revealed here.

“The tournament will be held at the same venue (Tau Devi Lal Stadium at Panchkula) in March next and possibly one more in October,” Kaul revealed here.

“The number of teams likely to participate the next time is likely to go up.” Kaul said adding that the focus, at the moment, was on the Tau Devi Lal stadium, where more facilities would be added to make it a better venue.

“The ICL matches will reach there in the households in Europe, the USA, the Caribbean, South Africa, Sri Lanka and other countries,” said Kaul, elaborating about a deal signed for the telecast of the ICL matches. The deal will enable its matches being available on TV sets virtually worldwide.

“Gateway, Astro and Siffy, all well reputed companies, will arrange live telecast of matches. Astro is one of the biggest DTH telecast provider.” The ICL matches are already available on a number of Zee channels across the country.

“Ideally, we would like that all big cities in the country have their own teams like Chandigarh Lions or Mumbai Champs competing among themselves.

“The successful launch of the tournament is like a dream come true. We did not have much time at our disposal to prepare for the 17-day tournament. There was a lot of skepticism about its launch. We have proved a lot of people wrong. Despite huge time restraints, I think we have managed to put up a decent show. The infrastructure has been put in the shortest possible time which in itself is a record of sorts.”

“Now that a beginning has been made, we are aware of the problems and the unexpected glitches which will be taken care of in the next tournament,” he said.

Asked about the offer made to host the matches at Eden Gardens, he replied that certain problems cropped up due to which Kolkata was not thought of as a venue.

He said that the ICL got a boost with former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav rallying for the success of the ICL. Besides Yadav, leaders like Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Amar Singh and Shatrughan Sinha have already visited the venue.

The New Delhi Jets coach watches his captain Marvan Atapattu, once a star for Sri Lanka, at the nets during the Indian Cricket League (ICL) tournament, an event and its players blacklisted by the sport’s governing body.

The game isn’t the cause of amusement. Of all things, Malhotra’s thinking of real estate.

“I’ve been told land prices around here have shot up 25%,” he says. “People thought ICL would be a flop. It’s a stupendous success.”

A top Panchkula government official can’t confirm the statistic, but proudly offers anecdotal evidence: The government rate for a 500 sq. yard plot is Rs35 lakh, while the market rate has soared to Rs1 crore.

District commissioner Rajender Kataria says that “one month ago, no one had heard of Panchkula”, whose population of 319,398 is merely three times a capacity crowd at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens stadium. “Now, we are on the international map.”

This young town, barely 18 years old and dwarfed by nearby Chandigarh, has pinned much of its future on the Zee TV-organized ICL. While many development projects were already planned—a seven-star hotel and an information technology park, for example—they have been given new life and possibility with the guarantee of steady traffic due to matches.

The current tournament ends on 16 December, but another is slated for March; ICL’s Twenty20 format features six teams playing against each other for a total prize money of Rs15 crore.

Globally, the introduction of a team, stadium or big event is a tried and tested way to spur local development. Consider Beijing’s efforts to spruce up for the 2008 Olympics, for example. And, of course, New Delhi has seen itself made over twice now owing to the 1982 Asian Games and the upcoming 2010 Commonwealth Games.

But those are already places on the map. For Panchkula—which relies on a combination of government jobs, agriculture and remittances from non-resident Indians to sustain itself—the league’s entrance is viewed as a way to reinvent itself as more than an extension of Chandigarh, independent India’s first planned city.

The Panchkula administration also hopes ICL can help erase some of its relegated status as a stopover between the hills of Shimla and the plains.

After the league was announced, Panchkula stepped forward as host, despite warnings from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) that those supporting the competition would be banned from its play.

For example, coach Malhotra and Atapattu, along with more than 50 players, can no longer be associated with BCCI-sponsored cricket; BCCI plans its own Twenty20 league, the Indian Premier League.