Mega bucks can make a retired Brian Lara pick up the bat again, tempt Shane Warne and Inzamam-ul Haq or even coax Stephen Fleming to announce his prematue retirement from Test cricket to be part of the Twenty20 glitter that Indian Cricket League (ICL) is planning. But its efforts may come to naught if the majority of the 40 first-class Indian cricketers the ICL is eyeing may decide against joining the ‘rebel’ league.And all these former India and India A players — presently sitting on the fence — have a strong reason for not joining ICL: that is losing their jobs. All the major recruiters of Indian cricketers — the Railways, Indian Airlines, Indian Oil Corporation, Indian Cements, ONGC and BPCL — have more or less decided to advise their players against joining the ICL.Reason? Going by the BCCI dictum, any player aligning himself with any such tournaments shall be barred from further participation in any board-approved tourney. This, in effect, means all those recruited under the sports quota by their companies cannot play even club or institutional cricket — the very basic clause of their employment. Shekhar Guha, sports officer of Indian Airlines said: “Although the rules don’t allow us to sack the employee who joins the ICL, we will be forced to convert him into a regular employee, which means he will not be entitled to any special leave to participate in tournaments. And all his other extra facilitieswill be withdrawn. He will be asked to report for the 9-5 duty.”However, Guha said if more people join then they will have to call a review meeting to decide on the future course of action because “half of my team would be rendered useless.”Railways Sports Promotion Board secretary Rakesh Yadav said there’s no debate on it at all. “We are affiliated to BCCI and we will go by whatever it says. I am yet to receive any written communication or directive from the board, but I think it is not possible for players to align themselves with ICL and also play under BCCI. If players wish to break the rule then they run the risk of losing majorly, but I can’t specificy what it could be.”A senior official of Indian Oil Corporation also ruled out his players joining the ICL outright. “We are affiliated to the Mumbai Cricket Association and none of them can join. We will tell him to put in his papers. It’s the players who have to think and decide.” Similarly, companies like FCI, ONGC, India Cements, SPIC, BPCL are affiliated to different state associations. The million-dollar question is: Will players risk their career, job, post-retirement pension and coaching offers that BCCI doles out in abundance for just one-month of cricket in a year?
