The BCCI has decided to allow the Indian cricketers from the Indian Cricket League to play for the country again, if they severed their ties with the rebel league by 31st May. However, there will be one year cooling-off period in which these players will not be able to play international cricket, but represent their domestic teams only.
This, according to the board is because many players had approached the BCCI to pardon them. “Lot of cricketers and support staff with the ICL met us and told us that they committed a mistake by joining the ICL and they want to return to the BCCI,” Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president told a website.The players can now play in next year’s IPL if selected by the franchises.
Following this move, many of the other cricket boards are also expected to do the same, although New Zealand will even want to waive off the cooling period, or reduce to a certain amount.
The Indian Cricket League also came out with its own statement, in which they said that they will not be renewing the contracts of some of the cricketers based on sports performance evaluation process across all cricket operations which they had conducted. ICL’s head, Himanshu Mody said, “Taking forward its sports performance evaluation process across all cricket operations, the ICL management has decided not to renew the contracts of some of the ICL players and support staff that have expired.”
My take on issue: This is a clear case of one-upmanship between the two rivals, the BCCI and the ICL, without any regard for the players. The players are like pawns in this battle of inflated egos and the problem is that not too many can understand the stand that BCCI has taken vis-a-vis the ICL.
One almost gets reminded of the legendary Coke-Pepsi commercials, in which both the giants take pot-shots at each other with nothing but laughter from the sidelines at the puerile nature of these squabbles.