The cashed up unofficial cricket league ICL continues to feast on Pakistan’s talent stock, eight more players, Sami, Naved-ul-Hasan, Mushtaq Ahmed, Humayun Farhat, Shahid Nazir, Hasan Raza, Imran Nazir and Riaz Afridi have signed lucrative contracts with ICL and the eminent life ban on Shoaib Akhter might also compel him to sign a deal in the next few days.
Besides these eight players six other players, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar, Shabbir Ahmed, Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood have already joined ICL. Off spinner Arshad Khan is also rumoured to have signed a contract with ICL he may join the league from next season.
The situation is nothing short of a major crisis for PCB as Pakistan’s bench strength and its domestic pool of players is fast depleting as almost all the second string players who do not get selected in the National team are opting for ICL. Although these players were mostly test discards and with the exception of Sami, Imran farhat, Imran Nazir and Shabbir Ahmed none of these players had any realistic chance of representing Pakistan in any form of the game, but these are all senior and experienced players and if they continue to play domestic cricket youngsters can learn a lot from these players. Also the quality of Pakistan’s domestic competitions will further deteriorate as most of the players who have any international experience will be either playing ICL or its official clone IPL.
But what worry’s me the most is the trend any player who is not being selected in the National team is willing to go on auction, and ICC and PCB are in no mood to soften their stand to ban those players who opt for ICL, this migration will continue if unchecked or not contained and Pakistan will be most affected as we have one of the largest pool of talented players who have no problem regarding adjusting in India because of similarities in language and culture. Financial incentives will also play a major role as what these players make domestically is chump change in comparison to what they would be receiving from ICL.
ICL’s official clone IPL is creating even bigger problems, if ICL is recruiting second string players from all over the world IPL is targeting the best and is getting them with far more ease as it is officially recognized. IPL has a 44 day schedule and I can’t believe that it will not affect the domestic setup of other countries, already we have seen that the Australian players are more keen to play IPL’s inaugural game on April 18th and make money rather than make an official tour to Pakistan, the incentives are so lucrative that their player’s union boss Paul Marsh even threatened that the players are ready to leave International cricket if a stand alone slot for IPL is not carved out where no International matches are being played.
The situation is already creating tremors in England where English club owners know that there is no way that they will be able to attract foreign players any more. If a separate window is not carved out for IPL it will trigger a lot of premature retirements in International cricket as the temptation to get rich is too big.
There is a clause in IPL’s agreement that no player will be able to play the tournament before two years from his date of retirement a clause which might get challenged in the court.
The threat of ICL and IPL are real, and by imposing bans on players the situation will remain unsolved, ICC should recognize ICL and try to regulate them. In fact both the bodies should be regulated they should not be able to recruit a player if a NOC is not granted by the respective board of the player and a quota for each league per country should be announced so that the domestic tournaments of these countries should not get affected.
ICL and IPL pose real threat to Cricket, Cricket has become a business from a religion.
A indian player participatiing in ICL can’t play International Cricket. It sucks !!!!!!
Yousuf has been blocked to play for IPL by the lawyers of ICL,one more Aussie Clarke has also pulled out of IPL.
The opposition parties are on their way to claim a sweeping victory over Mushy’s puppet Q-league and hopefully if a Broad coalition government is formed then that will be the end of Mushy and peace will be restored in Pakistan and their will be an end to these managed and targeted bombings aimed to create chaos in the country.
We might see a change in the PCB management also, and if the week following the elections remains peaceful then Australia might visit Pakistan.
What was supposed to be the Indian Pension league is turning into Indian parallel league,
only the freshly retired players were supposed to play in this tournament initially but now it seems all the big stars will be playing it. Brad Haddin and Johnson opted out of the league as they want to stay fit for their National team and Australian Board very wisely has put a limit on players who can play IPL.
Samy :
I hope it get sorted out but to create a separate slot for a 44 day tournament will be really difficult anyways hopefully we will have exciting cricket monday night football style.
I think I dia lost the match when Dhoni got run out that was an unnecessary attempt to take a single, India should look for somebody else in place of Uthappa he has been a complete failure in this series so far, Dhoni’s captaincy is also to be blamed a little bit as he should have persisted with his pace bowlers their was no need to give the ball to Youvraj who turned out to be quite expensive, if Dhoni had persisted with his pace bowlers Aus would have bundled out less than 200. But the batting was strange by the Indian’s especially when Lee was not in the attack.
Wasim,
The Aussies have asked for the inclusion of the IPL in the Future tours programme, so this issue will probably be sorted out in the next season.
Back to the cricket, India lost the match in the CB series mainly due to some very irresponsible batting. This match was quite similar to the one at Melbourne, which India won. The only difference was that the bowlers, after a good start, let Aus off the hook and allowed them to make 200. Even though the Aussie bowling and fielding was excellent, as it was at the MCG, it’s surprising that the Indian batsmen could not manage 4 runs an over. Most of the batsmen batted as though they had to chase a total well over 300. Their inexperience was clearly on display today. Anyway, at least the juniors had a better outing against PNG.
Pakistan won the first match against Malaysia in the U19 WC, Malaysia were bowled out for 75 , Adil reza was the star who took 6/29.
India has asked Australia to tour Pakistan and should take the host countries word on security as final. I personally believe that the bombings will stop after elections as these are targeted bombings made at the whim of Musharraf in opposition political rallies, if Islamic militants were behind it then Musharraf and his cronies logically speaking should have been the prime targets because of their support in the War against terror.
Musharraf knows that he is extremely unpopular at home and no matter what he does his supporting parties will not win so in order to keep the voters turn out low he is bombing political rallies. His own ottorney general has confessed of preplanned election riggings and his planned riggings can only succeed if the turnout of voters is low.
Things will calm down after elections.
Stephen Dominic:
May be you misunderstood me I am not against players going to India and playing there, in fact I want ICL also to be recognized by ICC, I have only expressed my concern that their should be a cap on the players hired from these countries and a proper system should be devised to recruit players from other countries like you see in Basket ball.
The time slot of these leagues should not be in conflict with that of ICC. Otherwise we will only have IPL and ICL left and no more international cricket.
Players should have a right to play where ever they want. Competition is never bad and I am also not against players making too much money, but during all this commercial and financial attraction nationalism should not get lost.
Samy:
Pakistan’s league which I believe is a franchise from IPL will start later sometime during this year, but my point is IPL is approved from ICC and is accredited by most of the boards around the world then its running slot should not have conflicted with that of ICC, now there will be no difference between ICL and IPL if both of them are going to be operated in the same manner.
BREAKING NEWS : India have just lost agianst Australi by a margin fo 50 runs . India should be guted they bowled extremely well
Wasim,
What I meant to say was that there should be PPL, where the teams would consist mainly of domestic players from Pakistan and also some international stars. This way, Pak can make sure that their domestic players are payed well and they also get a chance to compete with the best. This seems to be the only way by which the PCB can prevent the migration of the top domestic players to other leagues.
Shoaib has also signed with IPL but won’t he be needing NOC from PCB. What’s the difference between IPL and ICL why did they put their tournament in a slot which clashes with ICC”S
International Schedule, I was thinking that the IPL’s 44 day schedule will not be in conflict with ICC’s International schedule.
Samy:
We all know about the franchise system of IPL but the problems it is going to create will still be unresolved.
The BCCI apparently started the IPL so that Indian teams could compete in it’s ‘brainchild’, a Champions League-like tournament, along with teams from England, Aus, NZ, SA etc. But in the CL, all countries have their own professional leagues, so there should be leagues like the IPL in Pakistan, SL, Bangladesh etc. where no such leagues exist, so that the domestic players from ALL major Test-playing nations would get a chance to compete with the best and at the same time be available for national selection.
Good look and feel to your site. May it become more popular…My best wishes
Wasim Bhai
Why the site was stalled for so many days, I was expecting a new thread on the cancellation of Australian tour but anyways you tried to kill two birds with one stone.
PCB should start its own T/20 tournament and should properly market it, I am sure they will generate enough funds to pay handsomely to their own players, they should start a T/20 cricket tournament on the lines of Monday night football.
Their is no other solution to this problem.Money drives everything.
I agree with you Australian players are not coming because they want to play IPL.PCB managers do not have balls to stand up against ICC.If PCB does not want this to happen in future then they will have to retaliate and hurt Australia in every possible manner.
I am from Goa India,I like your site good Job,but sorry to say don’t agree with your views,if a software engineer or a doctor can go overseas to earn money then why can’t a cricketer do the same.You forgot one thing once IPL starts nobody is going to watch ICL and it will end on its own.
We live in a free world and free market economy players are a commodity and they are bound to be brought by the highest bidder.I like your site just found your article through Digg.
I agree,ICC should recognise ICL so that they can regulate them,
and PCB shuld increase the salary of its players.
I do not agree with you on ICL, the players should have a right to play where ever they want if they are not in the National team, have you ever heard of Agreement In restraint of trade no
regulation or rule can bar the players from using their skill to earn money.I cant wait for the thrilling T/20 matches.
The News headline is Aussie Players don’t want to tour Pakistan,
the security issue is just a hogg wash,you have outlined the real reasons in this article April 18th the inaugural game of IPL. Typical gora mentality they can sell their mother also for money.Gold diggers!
PCB should boycott all future matches with Australia.