PANCHKULA: Mumbai Champs had nothing to play for but pride. Even if too late in the tournament, Champs, after four defeats, won by seven runs, leaving Kolkata Tigers a dejected lot in the Indian Cricket League on Monday.

Mumbai Champs thrived on some erratic bowling by Kolkata Tigers to project a challenging target and the latter committed tactical mistakes and made a mess of the chase.

With the last set of matches to go, Tigers, Chennai Superstars, Delhi Jets, Chandigarh Lions and Hyderabad Heroes all remain in the race for the semifinals.

The scores:

Mumbai Champs 187 for three in 20 overs bt Kolkata Tigers 180 for nine in 20 overs (Abhishek Jhunjhunwala 32, Deep dasgupta 31, Nathan Astle three for 26).

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.

Panchkula : Brian Lara on Tuesday said that Indian Cricket League is an excellent platform for upcoming players and BCCI closing the door of national team for ICL players was unfortunate.
“I feel this (restraining players) is unfortunate. Individuals must be given options and doors should not be closed on them. For any cricketer the ultimate dream is to represent ones country,” Lara said.

“Many of those playing in ICL have been on national squads earlier. However, I am optimistic that this is just an aberration and the Boards will allow players the option to play for their country,” he said.

Lara, captain of Mumbai Champs, one of the six teams featuring in ICL’s Twenty20 tournament, said youngsters have learnt a lot in the company of former international players.

“The confidence and motivation of some of the Indian players playing in this tournament is something to watch for. It is great to see these players learn valuable things here and I am sure four or five years from now they will be playing international cricket,” 37-year-old Lara said.

Besides Lara, former international stars like Marvan Atapattu, Chris Cairns,, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Stuart Law and Craig Macmillan are captaining other teams taking part in the 17-day long tournament, finals of which will be played on Sunday.

Lara’s Mumbai Champs were ousted as they lost four consecutive matches and the West Indian himself in poor touch.

“I feel I am still adapting to the Twenty20 cricket. It has been the first tournament and I hope things will not be the same next time,” he said.

Brian Lara’s Mumbai Champs grabbed their first win of the Indian Cricket League with a narrow seven-run victory against the Kolkata Tigers at the Tau Devi Lal Cricket Stadium in Chandigarh, in yesterday’s day/night 20/20 encounter.

Lara was not needed at the crease in his team’s innings of 187 that cost them just three wickets, Man-of-the-Match Shreyas Khanolkar registering one of two half-centuries for the Champs in their 20 overs.

The consolation win came as they then skittled the Tigers’ lower order to restrict them to 180 for nine when the overs ran out.

Former New Zealand all-rounder Nathan Astle led the bowling with three for 26 in his four overs.

The Champs, skippered by Lara, lost their previous encounter on Sunday against the Chandigarh Lions by 38 runs, after Astle’s countryman Chris Cairns blasted 70 in just 26 balls.

In his team’s chase of the Lions’ total of 219, Lara opened in a losing effort after scoring just nine runs, the Champs being out for 181.

Brief Scores:

Mumbai Champs - 187 runs for 3 wickets in 20 overs.

Batting: SN Khanolkar - 64 runs from 39 balls, Subhojit Paul - 50 runs from 41 balls.

Bowling: Lance Klusener - 2 wickets for 29 runs.

Kolkata Tigers: 180 runs for 9 wickets from 20 overs

Batting: AA Jhunjhunwala 32 runs from 22 balls

Bowling: Nathan Astle - 3 wickets for 26 runs

NEW DELHI: For all the hype around the country’s first big league of domestic cricket, Essel Group’s Indian Cricket League (ICL), it’s the ongoing India-Pakistan Test series that remains the big draw among television viewers.

A like-to-like comparison of TAM Peoplemeter’s TV ratings of the simultaneously-on ICL matches and the second India-Pakistan Test shows that the number of people watching India-Pakistan was about five times higher than those watching ICL on the opening day of the league. And the gap only widened on Day Two.

Zee officials, however, insisted that the ICL ratings are “remarkable”. Said Essel group executive V-P Ashish Kaul, “Of course, we can’t compare with an India-Pakistan match that’s the Sholay of cricket, but still our ratings are very encouraging. The ICL ratings are the highest ever for any domestic cricket ever played in the country. In the past, domestic cricket viewing has scored almost zero TRPs. We expect our ratings to triple towards the end of the tournament.”

As per data released by TAM Peoplemeter System, among the target group of four-years-plus viewers across all-India cable and satellite households, the first two days of the ICL tournament saw Zee Sports deliver a TRP of well under 1.

The first ICL match played on November 30, for example, delivered a rating of 0.32. In comparison, on the same day, the same target group delivered a rating of 1.81 on DD1 for the India-Pakistan Test match, that’s about five-and-half times more than what ICL’s opening match posted on Zee Sports. Neo Sports, set back by low connectivity, generated an average TRP of 0.87 two-and-half times more than that of ICL that day.

Essel Group’s Mr Kaul said the ICL has done well when compared to domestic cricket viewership. “What the ICL has done is narrowed the gap between international and domestic cricket viewing audiences,” he said. Citing examples of domestic tournaments such as Challenger Cup and Ranji Super League which, Mr Kaul said, typically average ratings at least 30-40% lower than ICL.

On December 1, which was the second day of the India-Pakistan Test, DD1 posted a TRP of 2.04, with Neo Sports putting up 0.94 on the board. In stark contrast, the two ICL matches played on the same day posted ratings as low as 0.09 and 0.22 on Zee Sports.

Having connectivity of only about half that of overall cable & household households, Zee Sports is also not available on direct-to-home (DTH) platform Tata Sky which has a subscriber base of about 1.5 million.

Essel Group’s decision to telecast the first 30 minutes of the matches across the Zee bouquet too doesn’t seem to have done resulted in higher ratings. On both days, TRPs on Zee channels such as Zee Business, Zee Café, Zee News, Zee Music and regional Zee channels were negligible.

Zee Business and Zee Café delivered zero ratings on the second day of the tournament. ICL matches on flagship channel Zee TV, on both the first two days, also posted ratings of under 1.

Meanwhile, Zee group said that having sold ICL’s international broadcast rights to three global distributors, Astro PPV, Derana and Gateway, ICL’s showing would only get better. “Zee Sports connectivity has improved significantly over the past one month,” Mr Kaul said.