After failed talks, ICL's fate hinges on ICC's April meet

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• Next month's tournament has been cancelled • ICL insist competition will take place later this year More... Rebel Indian Twenty20 league hit by economic crisis • Next month's tournament has been cancelled • ICL insist competition will take place later this year David Hopps The Guardian, Thursday 12 February 2009 The survival of the rebel Indian Cricket League has been thrown into doubt by the cancellation of next month's tournament, with an admission that the global economic crisis is partly to blame. Dean Jones, the former Australian batsman and an ICL board member, revealed that the tournament was off and conceded: "The financial crisis played a part. But the ICL will be played later in the year – I'm very confident of that." Mounting uncertainty about the ICL's future will be met with delight by the England and Wales Cricket Board, which has had to fight off approaches for both its players and its umpires, and which has suffered fraught relations with India because of its inability to select anyone who takes part in the unsanctioned tournament. Reports suggest that the ICL's founder and chairman, Subhash Chandra, is now considering turning the event into an annual, international Twenty20 tournament in November – with an England XI among his priorities. Chandra, a one-time rice exporter who began India's satellite television revolution when he launched Zee TV, hopes that an annual, unofficial world Twenty20 will counter faltering advertising revenues and even persuade the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council, to drop its opposition. Paul Nixon, the former England wicketkeeper, was the only county player involved in the tournament last year after a successful campaign by the ECB to oppose participation. The ECB has warned that ICL players may harm their chances of England selection and has given counties winter grants of £75,000 to encourage a move to annual contracts. Nixon said: "Leicestershire were very happy for me to report back for pre-season training on 1 April. Now I'll be reporting earlier and in thermals with the rest of the lads. There is no chance [Chandra] will walk away from this. He has spent a huge amount, built grounds, flown in groundsmen, erected floodlights. What he has achieved is phenomenal." News of the cancellation broke as ICL organisers said they had identified English county cricket as their chief recruiting ground for umpires, claiming they had lined up two more senior officials to join the tournament that will now not take place. Himanshu Mody, the business head of the ICL, had insisted that two more umpires were about to follow the example of Allan Jones and take early retirement in favour of a few weeks at the ICL. Mody says in the March edition of The Wisden Cricketer: "We are still looking at England as a recruiting ground for umpires. In fact, we are in the process of bringing in two more English umpires to officiate in ICL. We approached English first-class umpires because we were keen to maintain international standards." The ECB has responded by introducing 12-month contracts for all its first-class umpires from 1 January this year, as well as increasing annual salaries to between £35,000 and £50,000, to ensure that any exodus to the ICL can be met with immediate removal from the list. Any collapse of the ICL would privately disappoint Englandís umpiring fraternity, which vales it not just as a potential retirement nest egg, but for its ability to draw a financial settlement from the ECB that is unparalleled in county history; if you wanted to know the best cheap digs in town, it was always advisable to ask an umpire. Allan Jones, 61, a former international umpire who did break ranks, and accepted a contract until 2010, has championed the ICL as a perfect retirement gift for umpires who have spent their best years and more battered by a succession of bad English summers. "I was a little fed up living out of a suitcase,íí he said. ICL is the most fun I have had standing up. The cricket and the crowds are fantastic". If the ICL morphes into an annual tournament, rather than the overkill of 3-4 tournaments a year, it would not provide enough revenue for umpires to turn their back on the county circuit. Instead, they would have little choice but to remain, forced to deal with what they are adamant is a decline in standards of behaviour as county players chase record prize money. To counter the rewards of Indian Twenty20, the winners of this season's championship will get £500,000, a fivefold increase on 2008, with two-thirds going to the players. And players competing in Twenty20 cricket will have their eyes on the first prize of $5m (£3.5m). One senior umpire said: "It's more than my job is worth to say this openly, but dissent in county cricket has hit an all-time low. It's worse than in Test cricket. When the TV cameras are there, no player likes to be caught cheating. But we often umpire without cameras and have to deal with players chasing money they are not used to. It wouldn't be surprising if an umpire or two gambled on the fact that the ICL would be around for a few years yet and decided to opt for an easy life."

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ha ha haha aha aha aha aha aha ha a how long now before the ICL's biggest superstar makes another flip flop

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After failed talks, ICL's fate hinges on ICC's April meet The fate of Indian Cricket League's application for ICC approval will now hinge on the governing body's April Board meeting in Dubai. More... After failed talks, ICL's fate hinges on ICC's April meet Agencies Posted: Feb 24, 2009 at 1053 hrs IST Johannesburg: After the much-anticipated tripartite talk failed to end the stalemate, the fate of Indian Cricket League's application for ICC approval will now hinge on the governing body's April Board meeting in Dubai. The three-hour meeting attended by ICC President David Morgan, Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat, BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan, Chairman of the Essel Group, which bankrolls the rebel league, Subhash Chandra and ICL's Business Head Himanshu Mody failed to reach an agreement on Monday. Later the ICC said in a statement that no further meeting was planned and the issue would now be discussed in the ICC Board meeting in Dubai. "No further discussions are scheduled and, as a result, the ICL's application to be recognised by the ICC as unofficial cricket will go back before the ICC Board at its April meeting in Dubai," the statement read. ICC President David Morgan felt it was unfortunate that no solution came out of it and said, "I am grateful to all parties for coming together with the best of intentions and the discussions took place in a friendly and cordial manner but, unfortunately, we were not able to come to a successful conclusion in our discussions." He, however, was happy that the "discussions took place without prejudice".