Champions League cricket in offing

The Board of Control for Cricket in India is all set to unveil its own ambitious international Twenty20 league plans in Delhi on Thursday, a move which is widely seen as a retaliation to the Indian Cricket League, an unofficial venture floated by the Essel Group.

Board officials from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England, Australia and India will meet on Thursday to discuss the finer points before the plans are made public in a press conference in the afternoon.

BCCI's working committee, which also meets at the same venue, would deliberate on the project and ratify it.

Apart from the Twenty20 league, the Board's working committee will also discuss some other important projects which have been in the pipeline for some time.

Though BCCI officials were reluctant to give details on the league, it is widely speculated that the administrators have borrowed the idea from football and this would be cricket's version of the UEFA Champions League.

Board officials from some countries, however, still don't have a clear idea about the proposed league and Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) president Jayantha Dharmadasa said though he had been invited for the meeting, he does not know what is there in the agenda.

BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi, the mastermind behind the project, has been working on it for quite a while but the project was under wraps. But after the emergence of ICL, and its aftermath that saw Ranji teams like Hyderabad, Punjab and Bengal severely depleted, the Board expedited the process.

Modi, Punjab Cricket Association chief I S Bindra and BCCI's chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty had recently made a hush-hush trip to Singapore where they met representatives of Australian, English and South African Cricket Boards to finalise the details.

Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland is learnt to have played a vital role in giving a final shape to the event.

The league was expected to kick off in April next year with squads from India, Australia, England, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa taking part.

International Management Group (IMG), an international event manager of repute, will handle the organisational aspects of the league.

It is also learnt that team franchises would be auctioned among corporates, who can buy 15-20 players for each team, and it is expected to open new employment options for players, coaches and other support staff, match officials and even scorers.