Zee to start parallel cricket league

New Delhi: Not quite Kerry Packer, but Zee Telefilms Chairman Subhash Chandra has set up a challenge for the BCCI - a parallel cricket league. But will any big Indian star player join him?

Revealing the details, Subhash Chandra said in the Capital that his company has set up an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore for the event, christened the Indian Cricket League.

It is also believed that some contracted and non-contracted players have already been signed up for the one-of-a-kind event.

"It troubles me that the country with more than a billion cricket fans and a million cricket enthusiasts fares so poorly at the international stage. A new approach must be taken for the sport to grow and prosper in the years ahead," Chandra said.

The first games will be in the Twenty20 format, Chandra revealed. There will be six teams in the league to begin with.

"We will start with the Twenty20 format keeping in mind the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa later this year, and One-Day Internationals will come later," Chandra said.

Chandra claimed that there will be four international players in each of the teams, while two Indian players and eight promising talents will make up the rest of each team.

He said that an ex-India player would coach each team. He also added that their mission was to create a talent pool of cricketers. "If BCCI wants to draw talent from this pool, they are most welcome."

The set-up will also create cricket academies headed by a National Director of Academies. The Essel Group will create a national talent reserve bench for Indian cricket as well.

"A professional league is the need of the hour as is the killer instinct in the players. Budding talent must be groomed at the grassroot level and given the experience to play on competitive pitches and not on placid tracks," he added.

All states will appoint cricket experts as talent scouts. They will identify talent in their respective areas.

He also said that the League is not being introduced as a conflicting event to the BCCI, but it will act as a support system to it.

The Indian Cricket League is expected to start sometime between July-August, 2007.

The BCCI Vice-President Lalit Modi reacted strongly to the launch of a parallel cricket league by Subhash Chandra.

"Firstly if he is planning a local tournament, he cannot use our sports facilities without our permission. If he is roping in international players - that requires BCCI and ICC sanction and I haven't heard about it till now. The board does not give private parties permission for any tournaments like this," Modi said.

The Indian team has been at the receiving end of tremendous criticism following its first round exit from the World Cup in the West Indies.

It was late Australian media baron Kerry Packer, also owner of the Channel Nine network, who introduced the World Series Cricket in 1977.