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Dubai: The Indian Cricket League (ICL), to be known as Edelweiss 20's challenge, will begin at the Tau Devi Lal Cricket Stadium in Panchkula, Chandigarh on Sunday.
Ahmedabad Rockets, led by Australian Damien Martyn, will take on Chandigarh Lions, captained by New Zealand allrounder Chris Cairns.
Despite being busy with the opening of this event, Kapil Dev, Chairman, Executive Board of ICL, took time off to fly into Dubai to be the guest of honour for a cricket tournament for construction workers on Friday evening.
"The ICL is being staged to create opportunities for hundreds of cricketers who want to play this game and make it a career. It is not being held to compete against anyone," said Kapil, who strongly believes that the younger generation of cricketers will gain valuable insight from this tournament that will help them in their game.
Live telecast
Dev has managed to rope some of the greats of the game like Brian Lara, Inzamam Ul Haq, Craig McMillan, Martyn and Cairns.
The dominance of Indian Premier League (IPL) owned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India has resulted in the Indian media playing down this event. Interestingly, it was the creation of the ICL that prompted the BCCI to start the IPL.
Dev also believes that "the competition between the two events will be good for the game."
The matches will be played in Hyderabad, Panchkula and Gurgaon and telecast live on Zee Sports, who had launched the event, and also on Ten Sports. Starting at 7pm in India, this Twenty20 event can be watched by people after office hours.
Inzamam is leading a strong Pakistan team under the banner Lahore Badshah's. The team includes Mohammad Sami, Mushtaq Mohammad, Naveed Ul Hassan, Saqlain Mushtaq and Imran Farhat. The organisers are seeing this team's match against the other teams as an India-Pakistan clash.
The Tau Devi Lal cricket stadium is a multi-sport complex on the outskirts of Chandigarh while Teri Oval is in Gurgaon. This ground was earlier known as Tata Energy Research Institute Ground. The Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, which will stage 10 matches, is one of the most famous Test grounds in Hyderabad.
Just before coming to Dubai, Dev signed up with Edelweiss Capital Limited as the title sponsors and the tournament will be called Edelweiss 20's Challenge.
High stakes
This tournament will have 34 matches and each of the eight teams will play against each other once in the league format before the semifinal and ending with a best of three final to be held on April 4, 6 and 7.
The ICL is offering Rs123 million ($3.8 million) in prize money. The winning team will take away Rs25 million ($650,000) while second and third ranked teams will pocket Rs12.5 million ($300,000) and Rs 5 million ($130,000) respectively. Besides this, each win in the league stage will fetch a team Rs2.5 million. A total of Rs70 million ($1.75 million) has been kept for the league games alone. Each man-of-the-match can pocket Rs200,000 ($5,000) and the man-of-the-series can win Rs4 million ($100,000). Though the BCCI has banned all players who will be playing for ICL, many promising players have joined the league.
The BCCI-backed IPL is set to commence in April. Whether ICL can win the hearts of the people one will have to wait and see.
FIXTURES
Mar. 9: Ahmedabad Rockets v Chandigarh Lions at Panchkula
Mar 10: Delhi Giants v Mumbai Champs at Panchkula
Mar 11: Chennai Superstars v Lahore Badshahs at Panchkula.
Mar 12: Kolkata Tigers v Mumbai Champs at Panchkula
Mar 13: Hyderabad Heroes v Lahore Badshahs at Panchkula
Mar 15: Chandigarh Lions v Delhi Giants at Panchkula
Mar 15: Chennai Superstars v Hyderabad Heroes at Hyderabad
Mar 16: Ahmedabad Rockets v Delhi Giants at Panchkula
Mar 16: Chandigarh Lions v Lahore Badshahs at Panchkula.
Mar 17: Chennai Superstars v Kolkata Tigers at Hyderabad.
Matches scheduled to begin at 5:30pm UAE time.
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