By IANS
Mumbai : Zee Television announced here Monday that 44 Indian cricketers and six foreigners, including former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, have signed for its breakaway Indian Cricket League (ICL).
Most of the players were paraded at a press conference here at which former India captain Kapil Dev – head of the ICL executive board – was present.
Besides Inzamam, his colleague and Pakistan vice-captain Mohammed Yusuf, Imran Farhat and Abdur Razzaq and retired South Africans Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje are the foreigners who will play in the six-city league to be held this winter, according to Zee TV.
Among the big Indian names signed are Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Jai Prakash Yadav, T. Kumaran, Abbas Ali and Laxmi Ratan Shukla.
“The amount of courage they have shown… perhaps even I did not have that much courage,” Kapil said, pointing towards the players lined up on the occasion.
Zee has set aside a corpus fund of Rs.1 billion ($232.26 million) for the ICL, as announced by its chief Subhash Chandra while announcing the concept April 3.
The ambitious league threatens to do what late Australian millionaire Kerry Packer did almost three decades ago when he hired the world’s top players for the World Series Cricket following his fight for television rights with the Australian board.