After days of speculation, the initial roster of 50 players who will be in the Indian Cricket League was finally revealed today. It is a good mix of players, probably the best given the current circumstances and much better than what was expected from the league.
The seven international players are Inzamam Ul Haq, Mohammed Yousuf, Abdul Razzaq, Imrah Farhat, Brian Lara, and Nicky Boje. Notable Indian players include Dinesh Mongia, JP Yadav, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Deep Dasgupta, Retinder Singh Sodhi and of course Ambati Rayadu.
The big signing:
The big signing definitely has to be Mohammed Yousuf, unlike the rest of the international players, Yousuf is in the best form of his life and is as important to the Pakistani team as Dravid is to the Indian team. Despite the fact that it has announced that the players will not be selected, the PCB cannot afford to drop Yousuf from the national squad, considering that Inzamam seems to be on his way out and there is not much talent coming through. Besides, Yousuf made 1788 runs in 2006, the most test runs in a calendar year ever.
This might just create a ripple effect and convince other international players that the ICL might just offer a good opportunity to make some money and play some competitive cricket. And players in countries such as England, South Africa New Zealand and Australia do share a good relationship with their boards, meaning that they could just convince their boards that playing in the ICL is in their best interests. The New Zealand player chief has already called for further support for the Indian Cricket League saying that the comparatively low incomes of their players could mean that they could be attracted to the league. There are talks of Jacques Kallis, Nathan Astle, Chris Cairns, Stephen Fleming joining the league soon.
Anyway, in my opinion the initial list of players looks much better than expected, and the list can only get better from here. What the BCCI does remains to be seen, whichever way, most people are hoping that the ICL can succeed just to ensure that the BCCI is forced into reforming itself.
The full roster:
Ambati Rayudu, Syed Abbas Ali Khan, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Abhishek T, Alfred Absolem, Avinash Yadav, Deep Dasgupta, V Devendran, Dheeraj Jadhav, Dinesh Mongia, Hemanth Kumar, Ibrahim Khaleel, Inder Shekar Reddy, Ishan Malhotra, J Hariesh, Jai Prakash Yadav, Kaushik Reddy, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manish Sharma, Mohnish Mishra, Puskaraj Joshi, R Satish, Rajesh Sharma, Ranjit Khirid, Raviraj Patil, Reetinder Sodhi, Robin Morris, Sachin Dholpure, Sarabjit Singh, Syed Akhlakh Ahmed, Shalabh Srivastava, Shashank Nag, Shibsagar Singh, Shreyas Khanolkar, Subhojit Paul, Subhomoy Das, Sumit Kalia, D Kumaran, T Surendra, Thirunavukarasu Kumaran, G Vignesh, D Vinay Kumar, and Yashpal Singh
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
Dude, this is getting better… Lance Klusesner! How long has it been since I saw this guy play…what a player!
I swear. Klusener has an average of 40 in ODIs. Stunning stuff! I expect some Kiwis and probably Kallis to be signed up by the end of the month. But the dates still seem a big problem.
The ICL, on first impressions, looks like a massive money-spinner. But in terms of how it would benefit Indian cricket on the whole… I’m not sure.
20-20 is an exciting format – watching Klusener and Lara ought to be fantastic. Loved Klusener when he played – remember feeling gutted for him during That semi against Australia. The BCCI are adopting the wrong attitude though.
The complete ICL roster…
After days of speculation, the initial roster of 50 players who will be in the Indian Cricket League was finally revealed today. It is a good mix of players, probably the best given the current circumstances and much better than what was expected from …