Indian Cricket League dispute ends in failure

An attempt to end an ongoing dispute between the unofficial Indian Cricket League and the Indian Board ended in failure here Monday.

The International Cricket Council announced in a statement following a three-hour meeting that no agreement had been reached. No follow-up meeting is planned. An ICL application to be recognised by the ICC as an unofficial competition will now go before the ICC Board at its meeting in Dubai in April.

ICC president David Morgan said: “I am grateful to all parties for coming together with the best of intentions and the discussions took place in a friendly and cordial manner but, unfortunately, we were not able to come to a successful conclusion in our discussions.” Morgan said no further comment would be made. .He said last week he called the meeting because he regarded it as a priority to get officials from the ICL and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) together.

Significant

“I think this is significant because experience tells me that the best opportunity to solve a dispute is to have the parties face-to-face,” he said..It was the second time a meeting between the rival Indian organisations ended in deadlock following unsuccessful talks in India last December.

The Johannesburg meeting was attended by Morgan, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, BCCI honorary secretary N Srinivasan, media mogul and ICL founder Subhash Chandra and ICL business head Himanshu Mody.

Chandra set up the ICL in 2007 as a means of getting cricket onto his Zee television network but ran into fierce opposition from the official body.

Players from the ICL are effectively banned from playing for their countries, while English county teams that field ICL players cannot play in the Champions League for top teams from national Twenty20 competitions, including the IPL.

JOHANNESBURG, Tuesday ,AFP