By IANS
Panchkula (Haryana) : Riding high on the success of its inaugural Twenty20 championship, the Indian Cricket League (ICL) Sunday announced five tournaments for 2008.
A visibly happy Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Essel group, and ICL’s executive board chairman and legendary cricketer Kapil Dev jointly announced the 2008 schedule here after the finals.
Chandra said the success of the inaugural tournament had prompted them to announce an event-filled schedule for next year.
“It has been great to see the response ICL has been able to generate in India and globally. Some of our players are already getting offers from English counties,” he said.
He said that future tournaments of the ICL would be played at multiple venues, including in metro cities, adding that names of the cities would be announced later.
The year will start with a 50-over domestic tournament in February that will see Indian players in action.
A Twenty20 tournament will be played in February-March that will see a triangular series among the best of Indian players and also others from cricket-playing Asian countries and the rest of the world.
The ICL also announced that eight teams – instead of the six that participated in the inaugural tournament – will participate in the Twenty20 ICL Grand Championship to be played in March-April.
“In April-May, we will open academies in prominent cities and in September-October, eight teams will participate in the ICL Invitational T20 Cup,” Chandra said.
November-December will see eight teams participating in the T20 championship’s second edition.
Regarding the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) stand to ban ICL players from playing for the national team, Chandra hoped that better sense would prevail on the Indian board to recognise talented cricketers playing for ICL.
“Within few years, these boys (Indian players taking part in ICL) will play for the country, otherwise I can say best players will not be playing for India, which will be disappointing,” Kapil Dev added.
Chandra said there was no move by the ICL for reconciliation with the BCCI. “We were never in conflict with them,” he added.