In one fell blow, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today virtually banished the Indian Cricket League (ICL) spectre from its nightmares. Announcing its ambitious Indian Premier League, with an international arm—the Champions’ Twenty20—to boot, the Board opened the gates to untold riches for Indian cricketers, beating the Essel Group-promoted ICL by streets even before take-off.Board vice-president Lalit Modi, having worked at it for the last one-and-a-half years, has come up with a novel franchisee model, a business venture that is set to spawn at least eight clubs in the first season (going up to 16 later), and all top Indian stars will be up for bids. Adding spice will be Aussie paceman Glenn McGrath, ex-New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming and all-time great Aussie spinner Shane Warne. All have confirmed. “More are on the way,” Modi said at a glittering function in the Capital today. The prize purse itself will be a decent $ 3 million for the domestic meet, but each star’s worth will be up for bidding —pushing the price of the likes of a Sachin Tendulkar to astronomical levels for a 56-game season of three-hour evening matches for the event starting April next year.The amount can be gauged from the fact that Fleming, who had almost been contracted with the ICL with an offer of a three-year contract at $ 500,000 per year (plus endorsements), has opted for the IPL. Figures were around the same level for McGrath. Lara too has been contracted with the ICL for that amount. The amounts for Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul Haq, Imran Farhat and Mohammd Yousuf are not on public domain.If Fleming and McGrath have decided to switch allegiance—Shane Warne too has finally opted for the IPL, it was official today (a video of his confirmation was shown to the media) — they must have been shown a bigger booty in store.It was a mega show of strength by the BCCI, with representatives of all ten full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), and ICC president Ray Mali himself, present. Also present were Team India skipper Rahul Dravid, Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble. There was everything official about it. In the run, BCCI president Sharad Pawar picked up the maximum encomiums. Interestingly, Pawar is president-elect of the ICC, taking up the responsibility in 2009, a year after the Champions Twenty20 (a club-level Twenty20 world meet, so to say), and a couple of years before the 2011 World Cup in India. “I had been hounded by the media after India’s loss to Bangladesh in the World Cup. Now, after Australia’s loss to Zimbabwe in the Twenty20 World Cup, I can face them again,” he joked. On a more serious note, he felt that “strategic initiative” as it has been called, will enable “growth of infrastructure in the country, the need of the hour.”Modi clarified that the ICL authorities had “approached us to be part of the initiative, but we told them we were many months into the planning and could not accommodate them.”On the issue of players from the ICL wanting to jump back into the IPL, he said: “The Board’s stand remains as it was before on such players.” The Board has made it clear that it wants no ties with the ICL-contracted players.Also, the foreign component comes with a prize purse of $ 5 million, plus more riches. The respective boards will organise their own domestic leagues to throw up the top two.There is another important issue in which the IPL differs from the ICL — players transfers. A transfer fee, a la the English Premier League, is being worked out. Everybody benefits.Meanwhile, the Board has extended the current Team India contracts by a year without changes in the format.
