The Indian Premier League could be about to be joined by an English counterpart.
Under pressure after leading players expressed their wish to play in the IPL, which starts for the first time tomorrow, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed on Tuesday that it has met with Texan billionaire Allen Stanford to discuss the creation of a similar Twenty20 tournament.
The ECB also said it could let centrally contracted players, such as Test captain Michael Vaughan and star batsman Kevin Pietersen — both of whom have expressed enthusiasm for the IPL, despite being unable to take part — play in the Asian competition providing it did not interfere with international commitments.
PHOTO: AFP
“This is in line with the ECB concluding its strategic approach towards Twenty20 cricket,” the ECB said in a statement.
The ECB said that it would consider detailed proposals from the 58-year-old Stanford, who set up the Stanford Twenty20 tournament in the Caribbean and next discuss the issue in May.
Players are eager to take part in the newest form of the game, which has drawn huge crowds and held its first World Cup last year, because of the lucrative contracts funded by the sale of broadcast rights.
Also, the World Twenty20 in South Africa drew far higher audiences and more enthusiastic crowds than the one-day World Cup in the Caribbean.
The ECB has been concerned about scheduling conflicts with the English season and what is seen as a shift in power away from cricket’s traditional home and toward Asia.
But the inaugural IPL begins tomorrow, with many of the world’s leading players — including Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and Shane Warne — in action.
And Vaughan said earlier on Tuesday that it’s only a matter of time before England’s players join in.
“I’ve seen a few of the previews over in India, with the adverts and the billboards, and it looks like it is going to be a big event,” Vaughan said. “If there are big grounds and there is a lot of money involved, you’re going to want to play in it. I think it will be sooner rather than later that we will see England players playing in the IPL.”
Dimitri Mascarenhas is the only England player taking part in the inaugural season but the one-day allrounder is not centrally contracted to the ECB, giving him greater leeway.
The ECB said that it has never explicitly banned players from the IPL, but that its home Test series for this year and 2009 clash with the tournament, making selection for both impossible.
Rather than taking up his bat in the IPL, Vaughan is available for Yorkshire’s season-opener against Leeds Bradford University Center of Cricketing Excellence, which started yesterday.
Pietersen has called the ECB’s perceived reluctance about the IPL “ridiculous,” and Vaughan seemed as interested as any fan when he talked about the tournament on Tuesday.
“I’ve heard so many people say that all the best players in the world are there and you want to go and play in it,” Vaughan told Sky TV. “I think we’re all naive if we don’t think that England players are going to end up playing in the IPL.”
If England’s players are to take part, the ECB could have to rethink its whole domestic setup because the English season begins in April.
The county championship has run since 1890 and has traditionally been seen as the heart of the English game, giving homegrown players an arena in which to hone their skills before elevation to the national team.
Several solutions have been mooted by commentators and the British press, such as a reformatted and rescheduled championship, a reduction in the number of competitions or even a season break to allow a similar “English Premier League” in June or July.
All could still be considered after Tuesday’s announcement.
As well as the players’ enthusiasm, is the threat of an exodus from the national side if the ECB forces its stars to choose between the high wages and sponsorship of the IPL and Test cricket.
“England can’t afford to lose all their best players to the IPL, but the players have families to worry about, mortgages to pay and futures to consider,” the chairman of England’s Professional Cricketers’ Association, Dougie Brown, said last week. “You can’t blame them for looking at the chance of being able to earn twice as much in a month as they could do in a whole year and concluding, ‘I want a piece of that.’”
While the ECB wants to protect domestic cricket and the England side, TV companies are seeking to exploit the huge audience for the shorter form of the game — prompting the explosion in Twenty20 tournaments.
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