The Indian Cricket League was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India. Its two seasons included tournaments between four international teams (World XI, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and nine domestic teams notionally located in major Indian cities as well as the champions Lahore Badshahs who were based in Lahore, Pakistan and Dhaka Warriors based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The matches were played in the Twenty20 format. There was also a planned domestic 50-over tournament, but this did not eventuate. While its establishment pre-dated the Indian Premier League, the ICL folded in 2009. Aside from commercial factors, the ICL lacked the support of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and International Cricket Council.
Indian Cricket League | |
Sport | Cricket |
Founded | 2007 |
Ceased | 2009 |
No. of teams | 9 city teams, 4 international teams |
Country | |
Last champion(s) | Lahore Badshahs, 2008 |
Indian Cricket League
9 Teams:
- Mumbai Champs
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History
The second season, which added Ahmedabad as a venue, commenced in the last quarter of 2008, with the Lahore Badshahs from Pakistan winning. Many international cricketers played in it like Imran Nazir, Abdur Razzaq, Shane Bond, Inzamam ul haq and Moin Khan was coach of Lahore Badshahs.
League structure
Each team was coached by a former international cricketer and comprised four international, two Indian and eight budding domestic players. Essel Group also planned to set up cricket academies all over the country. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was assured that it was free to draw from ICL's talent pool. The league became active in November 2007 with matches in the Twenty20 format.
Former international cricketers including Anjingsora Risora, Tony Greig, Dean Jones and Kiran More were hired as board members of the Indian Cricket League. The board positions will be paid positions.
Reasons for creation
Several factors have played a role in formulation of a cricket league and which may run in parallel to the current official Indian cricket control body, BCCI.
The "Inverted Pyramid" cricket structure
There is wide disparity between the facilities enjoyed by the national team and the regional ones. This makes the regional players far from finished products when they are called to represent their country, preventing a huge country like India from having adequate reserve strength in the national squad when key players are injured or retire. Also, the regional cricket boards depend on the BCCI for hand-outs of funds for infrastructure and grassroots development. The players who are entrenched at the top have strong backing from sports management firms and also can afford the best in personal trainers, physiotherapists and technical consultants, which are well beyond the scope of the average player.
Zee Telefilms desire to create sports content
The Essel group has expressed a keen desire to help India develop cricketing talent, as well as provide lucrative sports programming for Zee Telefilms, which lost out on the rights to broadcast all BCCI-sanctioned cricket matches in India until 2011. Essel Group had originally launched Zee Sports earlier with the anticipation of securing at least some of the BCCI telecast rights in 2006. This was followed by Zee acquiring 50 percent in TEN Sports in November 2006 for Rs. 2.57 billion (Rs. 2.57 billion). This gave the company a few international cricket rights – West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Cricket played in India generates Rs. 10 billion (Rs. 10 billion) in advertising and subscription revenue and Subhash Chandra has been acutely aware of his company missing out on this lucrative cricket pie.
During his battle with BCCI and ESPN Star Sports for the five-year telecast rights in August–September 2004 in the Bombay High Court, Chandra was present every day for the hearings. Despite Zee bidding the highest at $307 million, BCCI and its then president Jagmohan Dalmiya denied him the rights.
The pain of denial has been with Chandra since 2000 when the ICC World Cup rights were sold to NewsCorp's Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) for $550 million despite Zee bidding the highest at $650 million citing Zee's insufficient sports marketing experience.
In August 2005, Zee again emerged as a forerunner with a pitch of over $340 million while ESPN Star Sports, the other principal contender, is believed to have offered around $325 million. BCCI took the stance that Zee was not qualified as a specialist broadcaster and refused to consider Zee's proposal. The matter expectedly went to court and Doordarshan emerged the beneficiary.
Chandra then tried the political route too and supported Sharad Pawar's candidature as BCCI president against Dalmiya. Pawar emerged victorious but not Chandra. In the last round of bidding in February, last year, it was Nimbus who bagged BCCI's telecast rights till 2011 for $613 million with Zee trailing at $513 million.
Since there was a Zee-Nimbus alliance before the bidding, media pundits thought Nimbus' bid was a Zee front. But Nimbus chose to go its own way and launched its own sports network – NEO Sports.In 2012 stars ports bought broadcasting rights for international and domestic matches in India for more than $550 million.
Support for the league
The ICL received some support from unexpected quarters. There was a fear that lack of access to infrastructure, like the premier cricket stadiums, would limit the success of the operation of the league, but support from various government bodies boosted the league. Camps were held at Mayajaal in Chennai, a private resort with adequate cricket facilities. The then head of Indian Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav showed his backing by opening all the cricket stadiums controlled by the Indian Railways to the league. Describing the ICL as a "good initiative", Prasad issued a statement saying that the BCCI and ICL should each come up with a cricket team and play against each other to show who's the best. The state government of West Bengal also agreed to rent its cricket grounds, notably Eden Gardens, to the league. In Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation provided its Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium for matches.
BCCI Response
The BCCI refused to recognise the ICL as a cricket league, and criticised Kiran More and Kapil Dev for joining the ICL. Kapil Dev's association with ICL was seen by the establishment as a conflict of interest as he was also the chairman of National Cricket Academy, a BCCI owned cricket facility. On 21 August 2007 Kapil Dev was sacked from his NCA post. Subhash Chandra had earlier stated that the ICL will go ahead regardless of the BCCI's stance. The International Cricket Council gave a statement through its chief executive, Malcolm Speed, that the ICC would not recognize the ICL unless the BCCI chooses to recognise it. The ICC looks at the ICL as an issue to be sorted out by the BCCI. On 25 July 2012 Kapil Dev informed BCCI that he had resigned from the ICL.
Faced with the threat of young players joining the ICL, the BCCI jacked up prize money for winners, runners-up and losing semi-finalists across all tournaments. An average domestic cricketer can hope to make around Rs 35,000 per match day from the season of 2007–08: more than double the Rs 16,000 they got in 2005–06. The BCCI has also planned to do away with honorary selectors, who will be paid professionals from September 2008 onwards.
The BCCI started its own international Twenty20 league. The official league, which launched in April 2008, is called the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket. The league model is based on the franchise model of the National Football League and Major League Baseball in the US.
In August 2007, the ICL filed a petition against the BCCI in the Delhi High Court accusing the BCCI of threatening and intimidating them and other state organisations, and asked the court to stop BCCI from interfering with its attempts to sign up players for its tournaments. It also petitioned that the BCCI stop trying to "out-hire" cricket stadiums in India that are owned by the state governments, in anti-competitive attempts to stop the ICL from using them to play matches.
On 27 August 2007, the Delhi High Court ruled in favour of the ICL. In its ruling, the Delhi High Court said that players should not suffer in the battle between corporate giants. The court has issued notices to all corporate sponsors, the state cricket associations & the BCCI against terminating valid contracts of players joining the ICL.
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) of India had asked its Director-General of Investigation to do an initial investigation into the BCCI's action against players who had joined the ICL. The investigation was based on media reports of the BCCI giving an open statement that it will ban players who join ICL. It was also reported in the media that all state associations, under direction from the BCCI, have cancelled contracts with players.
Pressure on Players from Other National Organisations
In considering rejoining the ICL former England wicketkeeper Paul Nixon was said to have put his career in jeopardy because any player that signs up with the ICL, which does not have official status from the International Cricket Council, risks losing their registration.
The addition of a new team from Dhaka in Bangladesh, consisting largely of Bangladesh internationals caused more controversy as the cricket board of that country banned the players for 10 years for joining the 'rebel' ICL. Faced with the departure of so many players the board appealed to other Bangladeshi players to reject the new ICL team, stay loyal to the board and embrace the opportunity to play for their country.
The Downfall of the ICL
The future of ICL has become dark when BCCI allowed ICL players to play international matches.Since then many ICL players have returned to their national team including famous players like Shane Bond (now retired) and Abdul Razzaq.
BCCI after seeing the success of ICL wanted to start their own league called "IPL". So, BCCI didn't miss any chance to stop the league by banning players and stadium associated with ICL.
Shortly before the conclusion of the inaugural tournament, the ICL announced its plans for expansion, which include a fifty over tournament in February 2008, and the expansion of the ICL Indian Championship to eight teams for the second tournament, due to be held in September and October 2008.
A similar initiative has been launched in United States by the PayAutoMata group but details have yet to emerge.
In October 2008, the promoters of the ICL, Zee and its parent company Essel Sports Pvt. Ltd, had applied for trademark registration of T20 under Class 28 of the Trade Mark Rules, 2002.
Transparency Issues
Independent analysts have had difficulty gauging the financial viability of the ICL due to the lack of transparency of the league's operations. Terms of contracts are hidden and advertising revenue from match telecasts – considered to be a major contributor to revenues – have never been disclosed. Because they are unsanctioned by the ICC, the teams do not have access to the best facilities across the whole country or access to the best players, limiting their ability to generate high gate revenues. This lack of transparency leads to questions regarding the overall viability of the ICL's business model.
The end of ICL
The ICL has now come to an end after all its players dropped out.This was because of the offer of amnesty given by BCCI to players choosing to leave the ICL.
Broadcasting of ICL
Since the ICL was conducted by Zee Telefilms, the ICL was broadcast in most domains on the Zee network.
Broadcaster | Regional Broadcast Rights |
Zee Sports | Global Rights, India—Hindi, Bangladesh & US |
Ten Sports | India—English, Bangladesh, Pakistan & Middle East |
BTV | Bangladesh |
ATN Bangla | Bangladesh |
Gateway | North Africa |
Telkom-Malaysia | Malaysia |
Astro TVIQ | Malaysia |
Fox Sports | Australia |
Zee Music | UK |
Zee Smile | Asia |
Zee TV | Africa |
Caribbean Media Corporation | Caribbean |
In November 2008, the Bangladeshi government set a ban on the broadcasting of live matches of the ICL on the private held Diganta TV channel in the country. This would extend to the ICL World Series featuring the country's national team.
The season commenced on the 30 November 2007 and the final match was held on 16 December 2007. The league consisted of six teams and each team played each other once prior to classification matches.2007 season
The inaugural season for the Indian Cricket League was scheduled to begin in October 2007 but later shifted to start from November 30 with six club teams. The Chennai Superstars emerged as the inaugural ICL champions, beating the Chandigarh Lions by 12 runs in the final. Superstars bowler Shabbir Ahmed was declared Man of the Match for claiming four wickets, including a hat-trick while Superstars batsman Ian Harvey was declared Player of the Tournament for scoring 266 runs in 7 matches and taking 9 wickets.
The ICL 20s Grand Championship 2007/08 was a challenge tournament in the first season of the ICL that was made primarily to introduce the all-Pakistan team the Lahore Badshahs and to have them play against the other ICL teams. The tournament commenced on the 9 March 2008 and the final match was held on 6 April 2008. The league consisted of eight teams with each team playing each other once. The tournament sponsor was Edelweiss.
All Indian sports should be thankful to Kapil Dev and the ICL
The ads for the Pro Wrestling League are being aired on TV. The Haryanvi accent mocking men and women who have gone soft and need to be made ‘fauladi’ is enticing.
The contests have been exciting so far, given Indian wrestlers who have exceeded expectations at every sporting event in the last decade, their few moments of spotlight – moments that were until a few years ago proprietary to the cricketers alone – and until a decade ago, were proprietary to international cricketers alone.
The genesis of domestic sports’ leagues
Indian sports broadcasting has seen a sea of changes in the past half a decade. Pro Kabaddi was a major hit with the Indian audiences, highlighting how exciting the game which India dominates could really be.
The Indian Super League (ISL) and IPTL (International Premier Tennis League) are into their second season too, giving the large hordes of Indian football and tennis fans something to cheer about, something that allows them to grow their affinity to home teams, instead of fighting over faraway entities like the English Premier League (EPL) and the La Liga that they have traditionally followed or tennis superstars from faraway shores.
A lot of teams in Pro Kabaddi, Pro Wrestling and ISL are owned by celebrities including Ranbir Kapoor, John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan with cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli buying stakes in teams from non-cricket leagues.
If IPL is one of the major causes for revolutionizing sports broadcasting in India, aimed at tapping the potential in the second most populous country in the world, the credit at some point must be given to the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and thereby, to its figureheads Zee Sports’ Subhash Chandra and Kapil Dev.
Had the ICL not succeeded, the IPL wouldn’t have ventured into that world and had the IPL not revolutionized T20 cricket, spawning a bunch of other leagues around the world, Indian sports broadcasting wouldn’t have given its viewers such a diverse platter of sporting events today.
Short-lived hero of the pre-IPL era
The first one to jump through the fire generally gets the burns. The world learns from the mistakes and adapts. The Indian Cricket League in many ways was one of the first to dabble with domestic T20 competitions in India, supported by Essel and hence, in turn, Zee Sports, with Zee looking for sports content on its channel after being repeatedly thwarted by the biggies.
The result was interesting for cricket fans, and thanks to the massive payday varying between 50,000 to 150,000 pounds, it managed to attract many a cricketer. Subhash Chandra of Essel pulled off a rebellion much like Kerry Packer, who started the World Series, which initially dubbed a circus became one of cricket’s most enthralling stories producing brilliant cricket and entertainment.
ICL was helmed by none other than Kapil Dev, India’s first superstar cricketer and a man who would have ruled T20, being a cricketer way ahead of his times. Much like the World Series, ICL had to fight against the full might of giants, in this case, the BCCI and, therefore, the ICC.
Unrecognised by the Board, which had its own plans, ICL still went ahead and showed how T20 broadcasting can revolutionize sport. The crowds and the interest levels later led to the IPL and a host of other leagues, packaging live broadcast of adrenaline-pumping sport at prime-time.
ICL managed to sign some great cricketers including Glenn McGrath, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Shane Bond and Brian Lara. Without support from the Board, the League went ahead with just one stadium in Panchkula outside Chandigarh. Although many people foretold ICL’s demise, that it managed to pull off two seasons was a wonder in itself.
Subhash Chandra’s Chanakya Oath
Like Chanakya, who had vowed to overthrow the king who insulted him, Essel’s Subhash Chandra was a visionary who was repeatedly wronged. His first unfair defeat was way back at the beginning of the millennium when Subhash’s Zee Sports wasn’t given the ICC World Cup rights despite bidding the highest amount.
This continued event after event, year after year, with BCCI ignoring him as well. The reasons Zee Sports lost out included weird ones like its lack of experience in sports marketing or its qualification as a special broadcaster.
Eventually, Subhash went ahead with his own rebel league to create the content that he was unable to win through bidding alone, entangled in a long legal war with the BCCI and ESPN Star Sports.
Subhash started the rebel league in late 2007 and succeeded in implementing the idea with the help of Kapil, who along with the other board member Kiran More, ended up being amongst the few cricketers to miss out on BCCI’s one-time pension benefits for ex-cricketers.
Format and demise
The ICL should be credited for the idea of bringing in foreign players and making them compete with local talent. It was a novel and noble idea considering, until then, a lot of domestic cricket players in India, neither had the exposure nor the financial backing that their talent and careers needed.
ICL had nine teams including Lahore Badshahs, a team from Pakistan and Dhaka Warriors, a team from Bangladesh. Chennai Superstars won the inaugural season while Lahore won in the second season.
However, trouble started when players had to virtually take the risk of ending their careers to continue playing for ICL. In fact, the whole farce ended a few careers, especially after ICL players were banned from playing for their country.
The death knell for ICL came when BCCI and hence other boards, offered amnesty to all the ICL players who lost their registration leading to everyone opting out of the ICL contracts in 2009.
The IPL had started and the rest is history. Ambati Rayudu is one of the most famous names to emerge out of that amnesty and claim fame in the IPL. Eventually, even Kapil quit the ICL to accept the BCCI amnesty, thereby becoming eligible for the benefits that the Board offered.
Conclusion
The ICL committed just one fault – it went against the giants – and was hence taken down by the giants with all their might. But the ICL became the successful trial that helped leagues like IPL sprout all over the globe.
It also demonstrated the profitability of such leagues in India, a nation that until the IPL, hadn’t really had its full share of sporting coverage. The IPL, mixing celebrities with sports, turned out to be a huge hit the subsequent year.
It is sad and unfortunate that the ICL didn’t get its due credit. But Subhash Chandra along with Kapil managed to pull off the event despite numerous hurdles with extreme positivity. For that alone, they should find their name in the pantheon of modern Indian sports broadcasting.
