The game of cricket is shining at its best these days. First business tycoon Subhash Chandra of Zee Telefilms created the hype all over by creating Indian Cricket League(ICL), to which media adorned a tile as rebel ICL. ICL then published the list of some world famous cricketers who signed contract with them, including Inzmam – ul – Haq, Yousuf Yohanna, Nicky Boje etc. and with huge money prize for the winning team.
But The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) seems to be giving ICL a great competition as BCCI on Thursday launched the Indian Premier League (IPL) on the lines of football’s English Premier League and the National Basketball League (NBA) of the U.S. International Cricketers who joined Indian Premier League includes Australian master blaster bowler Glenn McGrath and former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, accompanies by Indian skipper Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble. Also joined by ICC president Ray Mali along with chiefs of other cricket boards.
BCCI’s main attraction behind launching Indian Premier League is the prize that winner will receive. It is announced to be of $5 million for Twenty20 League tournament. And hidden benefit of being associated with IPL is that, the players do get a chance to play in Twenty20 world championship organized by ICC. The first Twent20 Championship will be conducted in October 2008, having eight teams in it, supported by cricket boards of Australia, South Africa and England.
The IPL, India’s domestic Twenty20 league will debut in April 2008 with 59 matches spread over 44 days. The IPL will primarily be played under lights with play beginning at 5 p.m. Two matches will be scheduled each day. The winning team will be endorsed with a prize money of $3 million, the highest prize being paid in domestic tournament.
Just like football, clubs, the IPL will allow sponsors and corporate sectors to buy and run teams in addition to being able to buy (rather choose) players. This new feature is terrifically interesting. Under the franchise model, a sponsor wanting to have its team will pay a stipulated fee to the BCCI to get ownership. The franchisee will also have to share revenues with the cricket board, details of which were still being worked out.
As in football premier league the players can be transferred from one team to another based on their needs and money package.
Every team will have sixteen players. Still it’s not confirmed as if how many international player each team will contain.
“The revenue generated from the IPL will be pooled back into developing better infrastructure and facilities for cricket fans at the venues,” said BCCI President, Sharad Pawar.
Indian Premier League seems to be very promising ,interesting and will endorse lot of fun to the cricket fans all over the world, with Twenty-20 new format, huge money prize and clubbing. In addition, watching International players playing together too will be an add-on attraction for the cricket fans, just for example watching Sachin Tendulkar,shane warne and Glenn McGrath playing for the same team.
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