Not much seems to have gone right for the Indian Cricket League since the idea was floated. Firstly it was announced that the ICL players wouldn’t be allowed to play first class cricket, which meant that they weren’t really able to attract good players. Then, there was the problem with the grounds, with state associations refusing to let their grounds out for ICL use. Then, some players who had signed backed out (Yousuf, LR Shukla) and went back to their host associations. Then there was the problem with the timing of the tournament given the Indian national team’s hectic schedule. And last but not the least, really badly designed uniforms.

Kolkotta Tigers and Hyderabad Heroes

Finally, a good eight months after the concept was floated, the ICL teams have been announced. And for a change, something seems to be going right for Subhash Chandra and his team. It looks like there has been some method to the madness by which players got recruited. When players started signing up for the ICL left right and center, it seemed as though they were poaching any tom, dick and harry. Now, it looks like there was some kind of system to the poaching. Has to do something with the geography.

The main thing that the ICL has done right is to have concentrated on a few Ranji teams and poached wholesale from them. If you managed to read cricinfo’s preview of the current Ranji season, where they profiled each team, a state was either unaffected by the ICL or heavily affected. By poaching wholesale from one state team, what the ICL has managed is to have a geographically identified core group around which a team could be built.

Teams like Kolkota Tigers and Hyderabad Heroes have had it easy, given the number of guys from Bengal and Hyderabad and Andhra who switched over into the ICL. And these guys have formed the core of these teams. Similarly, the Madras and Chandigarh team have benefited from “mass migration”. Yes, the Delhi and Mumbai teams look fairly motley – but that has been mainly because they haven’t been drawn mainly from single sources as other teams. However, on the whole, the ICL seems to have done a far better job of player distribution amongst teams when compared to the only other similar exercise – the premier hockey league, where players were fairly randomly distributed among the franchises giving each team little geographic identity.

The way most of these teams have been configured (ok i’m really stretching it here) reminds me of one article I had read in the ToI some 3 years back about the Milan team of the 1980s. That was the time when football teams had just started recruiting foreign players in big numbers. Milan had recruited the three Dutch stalwarts – Gullit, van Basten and Rijkaard. And the rest of the team was made up of local homegrown academy players. Thus, they managed to retain their traditional fan base while bringing in foreigners. The ToI article had gone on to say that the lack of local talent led to a massive erosion of support for Real Madrid during the galacticos era.

Challenges in the horizon

Similarly, here, the local guys in each team have been backed up by either retired or fringe international players. The team of coaches also looks quite good. The ICL had initially mentioned that each team would have about six local young talents. The number of unknown names in each list makes me believe they are actually sticking to that. It would be a great experience for these youngsters to be playing alongside the likes of Lara and Inzy and Cairns, and some might even grow up to be good enough for the BCCI to recognize the ICL and bring them to the mainstream.

Of course, challenges still remain. Zee Sports, where it will be telecast, reaches few homes. Demand won’t be strong enough for cable operators to take out one of the big sports channels and provide Zee sports. Tata SKY doesn’t offer the channel. That leaves just the Zee-controlled Dish TV system, not a huge audience. The matches themselves will be played in some nondescript stadium in Panchkula in Haryana. It is close to Chandigarh but I’m not sure about the crowds. Then, it is doubtful if the rest of the mainstream media will even cover these matches. That might have a huge bearing on the effect of the ICL.

Photo Courtesy: Bombay Bitch

Cricket, Indian Cricket | 1 Comment »

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

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It was a 177 as captain of the Indian Under 19s in a one dayer against the English Colts in the aftermath of our Natwest triumph in 2002 that brought Ambati Rayudu to national prominence. He had become so popular that everyone on stage (except the quiz masters) could recognize his picture in a cricket quiz held in Anna University a few months later. After being touted as the next Sachin, Azharuddin, Laxman, etc, and a pretty good first season, suddenly he lost his way and dropped out of the limelight. There was a shift to the Andhra Ranji team a couple of seasons back and then a comeback to the Hyderabad Ranji team last season along the way. But it did seem like he would end up being just another Ranji player, he was going nowhere. All this and he is still just 21 years old.

Now he is back in the news as the first current player to sign for Zee’s Indian Cricket League in defiance of a probable ban that might be imposed on him. And supposedly he is not alone. He is joined by the cream of the Hyderabad team, the elegant left handed number 3 Anirudh Singh, the dependable D Vinay Kumar and the keeper Ibrahim Khaleel. TOI has clearly attributed the reason for this “defection” to the monetary benefits that the new league would offer. Ofcourse money is a major motivation, but I believe that there is another equally important reason as to why it was a group of Hyderabadis who were the first to join the ICL. Something that I (and some friends) term the quota system.

The quota here refers to the selection of sons of ex-cricketers in the teams that matter at the cost of other arguably more talented players. The ex-cricketer and son that I am referring to are Shivlal Yadav and his son Arjun Yadav. In the last season, Arjun Yadav hadn’t done anything of note and yet was rewarded with a place in the India A team. He also finds a place in all the South Zone teams. There cannot be any other reason for such a mediocre achiever to go places other than the power his dad wields with the Hyderabad Cricket Association. And incidentally, Shivlal Yadav’s previous claim to fame was the selection of Noel (who?) David.

Given that one guy who has performed as well or as badly as the others is preferred shows that it is not meritocracy at work. And as a result the entire middle order except Arjun has decided to quit putting their entire careers at risk. Or probably there was no chance they could have a decent career.

It also seems to me like Arjun Yadav was also responsible for Ambati Rayudu’s sudden and unexpected shift to Andhra. And there is some colourful history also between the two where Arjun Yadav ran behind Ambati Rayudu with a stump in hand at Anantapur two seasons back due to allegations that Yadav was a quota candidate. And it could very well have been pressures such as these that have had a big role to play in Rayudu’s decline.

ICL has hit the Indian cricket administration at the right weak point, the quota system. something that is obvious to even a casual follower of domestic Indian cricket. There must be other such affected and disgruntled cricketers. And there is no reason why someone who is kept out by say an Udit Patel or an Anirudh Srikkanth will not join the ICL. ICL has found quite a fertile ground to target. Good strategy and I seriously hope this will pay off.

See the complete roster of players here- ICL Player list

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