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Essel Group launches its own cricket tournament – Indian Cricket League
Essel Group, in association with Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Services, has launched a professional cricket league, called Indian Cricket League. The idea, says the company, is to create a talent pool of cricketers in India
So what if Zee couldn’t bag the telecast rights for the BCCI matches. It has gone ahead and rolled out its own tournament, Indian Cricket League, with an investment of Rs 100 crore. This tournament will provide exclusive content for the group’s sports channel, Zee Sports, and also for Ten Sports, in which the Zee group has a 50 per cent stake. Executives at Zee say that they are also ready to sell the telecast rights for the tournament to other broadcasters, depending on the popularity of the tournament.
The tournament has been launched by Essel Group, the parent company of Zee Network, in association with Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Services.
Subhash Chandra |
Initially, the tournament will be played among six teams, but in three years, the organisers hope to take the number of teams to 16.
Each team will include four international players and two Indian players who have played at the international level. The rest would be budding talent from the country. This is thought to be a clever move as it is the international and Indian ‘A’ team players who will draw audiences. However, it is still to be seen whether the BCCI will allow cricket stars such as Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dhoni and Yuvraj to play in these matches, as they are bound to the BCCI by exclusive contracts. Minus these players, there would be no excitement around ICL, as happens in the case of domestic cricket. To keep players interested in these matches, ICL has announced prize money of US$ 1 million for the winning team. To add glamour, the league will also include former Indian cricketers, who will mentor teams from their regions.
To keep the interest high, ICL has decided to bet on the fastest form of cricket, the 20-20 format. Later, full fledged 50-over one day matches will also be a part of the league.
The ICL also plans to promote young talent by creating cricket academies at the regional level, equipped with state of the art facilities and headed by international/domestic coaches under the supervision of a national director of academies. ICL hopes that some day BCCI will also pick up some talent from this league to represent India.
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