Indian Cricket League - History

History

Zee Telefilms, part of the Essel group promoted by Subhash Chandra, had bid for the telecast rights to the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Although the highest bid, it was unsuccessful. In 2004, Subhash Chandra again bid for telecast rights and ended up in an inconclusive court battle. He made another bid for the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy rights and once again lost. He responded by creating the ICL. “They denied us the cricket content,” said Himanshu Mody, business head of ICL and Zee’s sports,“so, we had to create our own content.” Zee Telefilms announced that it would partner with major infrastructure group IL&FS to create a new, ambitious cricket organisation, the Indian Cricket League. with prize money of one million US dollars in the initial edition for the winning team.

The ICL was set up with a billion dollar Indian Rupee corpus, and was to initially comprise six teams playing Twenty20 cricket, with plans to expand to sixteen teams within three years and to eventually move to 50-over matches. These plans, if they had been realised, would have made the ICL the richest professional league in India. On 24 July 2007, some famous international names were announced to have signed to play in the ICL, including highest innings record-holder Brian Lara.

Due to the unofficial nature of the league, most of the national cricket boards warned their players against joining it and as a result most of the international players who signed for the first edition were retired internationals, such as Brian Lara, Chris Cairns and Craig McMillan, or former players no intention of breaking back into their national team, such as Chris Read and Daryl Tuffey (who has since broken back in the New Zealand team, after breaking ties with the league). A notable exception was Imran Farhat, who chose to opt out of his Pakistan Central contract to sign with the League. Former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad said he was not able to understand why the PCB would not allow its players to participate in the league and why it was threatening players with a lifetime ban. The PCB subsequently banned players involved in the ICL from playing domestic cricket, a move that prompted some players, notably Farhat and Taufeeq Umar, to threaten court action.

The opposition to the league from the national cricket boards across the world and the International Cricket Council (ICC) was continued into the league's second edition. Several international ICC players who were signed to play domestic cricket for teams in the English County Championship, including Shane Bond, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Mushtaq Ahmed and Jason Gillespie were unable to fulfill their County Championship contracts because the home counties cricket boards refused to grant them the necessary documents to play in England.

The first edition of the league commenced on 30 November 2007. The league consisted of six teams with the matches played at Panchkula, near Chandigarh. Matches were initially held at Tau Devi Lal stadium in Panchkula, near Chandigarh, Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad, and at Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon, near New Delhi. In 2008, ICL games were played at more venues.

The first edition had 6 teams; this was expanded to 8 in early 2008, and one more team was added in the second half of that year. Players participating in this league had been threatened with bans by the cricket boards of their respective countries, as the ICL was regarded by them as an unsanctioned rebel league. However most of the players continue to play first class cricket under the control of their respective boards. The first edition concluded on 16 December 2007 with the Chennai Superstars winning the first title. The second edition was a 50 over tournament played from 7 January 2008 to 28 January 2008 at Mayajaal Cricket Ground, near Chennai, with Chennai Superstars winning again. A third edition which commenced on 9 March 2008 saw the league expanded to eight teams and matches being played at two further venues, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. The Hyderabad Heroes won the 3rd edition. The fourth edition was a domestic Twenty-20 tournament won by Chandigarh Lions.

The second season, which added Ahmedabad as a venue, commenced in the last quarter of 2008, with the Lahore Badshahs from Pakistan winning.