The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Bonanza for ICL cricketers; promoters announce prize money corpus

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Sunday, Mar 09, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Bonanza for ICL cricketers; promoters announce prize money corpus

V.V. Subrahmanyam

HYDERABAD: In an apparent bid to project a sweeping impression that there is a lot of money involved in the Indian Cricket League too – a parallel set up to the official Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the promoters of ICL have announced a massive prize money corpus of Rs. 12.33 crore for the second edition which unfolds in Chandigarh on Sunday and then move on to Hyderabad’s Lal Bahadur Stadium.

No wonder, the huge stakes in the Indian Premier League, the official version of BCCI to ICL – may have spurred the organisers of ICL to come up with an effective counter with the primary objective of conveying the impression that there is huge money at stake even in the ICL too and lure the fans by way of ensuring competitive spirit.

For, the winners in the ICL this time around, will be richer by Rs. 2.5 crore, the runner-up Rs. 1.25 crore and the third-placed Rs. 50 lakh. It is not just this.

Incentives

To ensure high quality competition in the league matches, the promoters have announced that for every win in the league phase, there will be an incentive of Rs. 25 lakh each resulting in a total prize money of Rs.7 crore at this stage only.

And for all those champion cricketers like Brian Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Lance Klusener, Damien Martyn there is the incentive for outstanding individual performances. Well, no cricketer plays for incentives but it is an undeniable fact that they do play a major influence on any game.

The ICL man of the match awards carry a cash prize of Rs. 2 lakhs each and a whopping Rs. 40 lakhs for the ‘man of the series’. With Edelweiss being the title-sponsor for this Edelweiss 20s Challenge, this Twenty-20 tournament is bound to create a wave of interest.

Cricket academies

For the next 30 days, there will be non-stop exciting cricket. And all the matches will be telecast live, 34 matches on Zee Sports and Ten Sports channels. The good news now is that a major forthcoming initiative of ICL is to setup a nation-wide infrastructure (cricket academies) equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to be headed by international and domestic coaches.

Well, for the next two months, it will be cricket all over what with Hyderabad also hosting seven matches of the high-profile IPL at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium (Uppal).

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