Bangladesh squad joins ICL

[social]

The reasons for hoping the ICL is removed from the scene is purely to do with its disruptional potential,

Richard, just who is being more disruptive?

Surely not the privately owned ICL, an entity that is legally obliged to release its contracted players in order to allow them to fulfill their "establishment" obligations.

Compare that stance to the "establishment" IPL

1. Players are withdrawing from international tours to chase the cash

2. The game's second most important ODI tournament is in limbo because the BCCI refuses to let its national team play on dates that conflict with its' non-accredited domestic flagship

3. Other country's (e.g. England) domestic programmes are being thrown into disarray because players are threatening to boycott tests that conflict with same

4. England's captain, and current messiah, has threatened to walk away from his adopted country's national team unless he's allow to play in the IPL

5. The BCCI blackmails anybody that stands in its' way (e.g. withholding the retirement benefits of one of its' country's greatest ever players because he dare serve a different master AFTER his retirement and refuses to pay ICL players for matches that they already have played)

Take your blinkers off mate, the only thing the ICL has been guilty of is being the first to recognise the potential of T20

 

[andyc]

Fair call that

 

[Richard]

Of course they would allow me to work for a competitor in my spare time- if I'm working on contracts that keep me employed for ten months of the year, there's nothing they can do legally to stop me from working for someone else for the other two months, even if that someone else was a competitor. An employer can't, and should never, hold such power over an employee.

Hang on - how many serious cricketers are not under 12-month contracts? There's even a fair few counties who employ their players 12 months a year these days - and possibly this is one reason why, in order that they do have the power to stop them working for competitors.

Just because you may only play for 10 out of the 12 months doesn't mean that's all you're employed for. Cricket is one of those wonderful employment things where rest is not merely part of your job but something your employers will sometimes instruct you to do.

As for the propaganda- of course that's what it was, but it's legally binding nonetheless. Showing themselves willing to work with cricketer's desire to play international cricket was a big step- i don't believe, were they validated by the ICC, they would be able to realistically turn round and say their players could thereafter not play for their countries. It would be a ridiculously bad business decision to do so, and after all, if destroying the BCCI is one of their aims it is most definitely secondary to the aim of making money.

They're not aiming to destroy the BCCI (well at least it doesn't seem that way), merely to get people to watch their cricket rather than the BCCI's cricket. I don't see this clause thing lasting longer than 5 minutes, and I'm very surprised it was put in there ITFP. Perhaps that was simply because it was a Kiwi involved. Perhaps Bond honestly thought he could do both, and Zee were prepared to kowtow to that to get him at all.

One more thing about the TV rights- wasn't the tour of Sri Lanka shown on Zee TV?

Yep, and I said at the time that I was extremely surprised the BCCI didn't threaten to withdraw from the series unless the BCCSL pulled the plug on that. Maybe they knew the BCCSL had no power to do that and would lose practically everything if they did. But I'd not be amazed if they tried putting some pressure on the BCCSL to not work with Zee again after whenever the current contract expires.

 

[Richard]

You make them sound like the mafia

BCCI have power but i think the people on this board give them far more than they really have. It's in other countries boards interest that the IPL wins over ICL just as much as it is the BCCI's interest.

It's not a case of IPL vs ICL - the IPL is simply one vehicle in the fight against the ICL. It's a case of cricket boards vs ICL.

And I'm well aware that it's in everyone's interest to win the fight with the ICL, and that it's not purely a fight with the BCCI. That's another reason it'd be stupid for any cricket board to side with the ICL rather than the BCCI. It may not be apparent very often, but the BCCI does help other cricket boards - the ICL will never do such a thing, it's entirely a self-serving entity. The BCCI, when it comes down to it, is every bit as much part of the cricket fraturnity as the ECB or CA.

Maybe if the BCCI hadnt shuned Twenty20 for as long as they did the ICL wouldnt have had the oppotunity to exploit the gap in the market that was left.

Maybe. And maybe they're going to be shown to have been right to shun Twenty20 if it turns-out to destroy the Test and ODI games as isn't impossible (and don't tell me that's nonsense - it's a question that won't be answered for 20 or 30 years).

 

[Richard]

Sometimes to make a stand you have to take what comes your way (cue that certain similie).

That's true to an extent indeed, but if "complete loss of everything" is such a thing, taking said stands is unwise.

Anyway counties are allowed to field ICL contracted players, why not the pressure to the ECB to tell the counties that have said ICL players to GAGF?

The ECB have no legal power (not little - none at all) to do that, British law prevents such a thing.

That's tue, but are we any closer to that?

Yes, we get closer all the time. There are certain carrots that people (mostly the BCCI) can offer to make it less and less likely that players will sign for the ICL. If they can reduce the ICL to the status of a retired-in-2002 competition, who knows - maybe someday people'll stop watching and Zee will wind-up the competition.

 

[Richard]

Richard, just who is being more disruptive?

Surely not the privately owned ICL, an entity that is legally obliged to release its contracted players in order to allow them to fulfill their "establishment" obligations.

It isn't legally obliged, at all - the inclusion of such contract clauses is entirely optional. The ICL don't have to offer such clauses at all, they've simply chosen to do so in order to give themselves a better chance of luring international players.

Compare that stance to the "establishment" IPL

1. Players are withdrawing from international tours to chase the cash

2. The game's second most important ODI tournament is in limbo because the BCCI refuses to let its national team play on dates that conflict with its' non-accredited domestic flagship

3. Other country's (e.g. England) domestic programmes are being thrown into disarray because players are threatening to boycott tests that conflict with same

4. England's captain, and current messiah, has threatened to walk away from his adopted country's national team unless he's allow to play in the IPL

5. The BCCI blackmails anybody that stands in its' way (e.g. withholding the retirement benefits of one of its' country's greatest ever players because he dare serve a different master AFTER his retirement and refuses to pay ICL players for matches that they already have played)

What's the significance of any of this? Where on Earth have I said the IPL is such a magnificent thing? I've said all along that there are dangers, many of them, associated with the IPL, and the biggest of all is one you don't mention and one that will only start to come to fruition 30 years from now - that players will concentrate more on the development of Twenty20 skills than those needed for the real game, because Twenty20 offers so much more money.

Take your blinkers off mate, the only thing the ICL has been guilty of is being the first to recognise the potential of T20

Legally that's true, but the best interests of cricket and law don't always go hand-in-hand, and the ICL, just like WSC, is something that the game would be so much better off without.

 

[Uppercut]

Hang on - how many serious cricketers are not under 12-month contracts? There's even a fair few counties who employ their players 12 months a year these days - and possibly this is one reason why, in order that they do have the power to stop them working for competitors.

Maybe i didn't make myself clear- cricketers, like the rest of us, don't get paid for a 24 hour day. Their bank balance isn't going up while they sleep. There's certain contractual obligations they have to meet- showing up for training, coming to the matches, actually trying to win. What they do when not "on the job" as such is nothing to do with the employer, provided it's legal and doesn't interfere with the job they do. That's what the English counties found out this summer. And if the law is different in India, IMO it shouldn't be, for reasons that have nothing to do with cricket.

Just because you may only play for 10 out of the 12 months doesn't mean that's all you're employed for. Cricket is one of those wonderful employment things where rest is not merely part of your job but something your employers will sometimes instruct you to do.

They're not aiming to destroy the BCCI (well at least it doesn't seem that way), merely to get people to watch their cricket rather than the BCCI's cricket. I don't see this clause thing lasting longer than 5 minutes, and I'm very surprised it was put in there ITFP. Perhaps that was simply because it was a Kiwi involved. Perhaps Bond honestly thought he could do both, and Zee were prepared to kowtow to that to get him at all.

Yep, and I said at the time that I was extremely surprised the BCCI didn't threaten to withdraw from the series unless the BCCSL pulled the plug on that. Maybe they knew the BCCSL had no power to do that and would lose practically everything if they did. But I'd not be amazed if they tried putting some pressure on the BCCSL to not work with Zee again after whenever the current contract expires.

Btw- NZ cricket told Bond it was okay for him to do both before he signed. Tragic man-management as per usual.

The ICL will not destroy international cricket any more than ITV destroyed the BBC. Do you honestly think, despite it being in direct competition with the BCCI, that if it were allowed to employ every international player in their spare time, it would refuse? It would say, "Hey, we're not having any of these part-time superstars who will make us all very, very rich. Instead, we're going to offer them non-negotiable contracts that mean they won't be released for international cricket, which they will in all probability turn down. And let our league collapse due to a lack of quality, thereby costing us millions."

The ICL working with rather than against international cricket makes much more business sense. What was surprising about them allowing Bond to be released for international matches? It was really obviously the right thing for the business to do.

 

[andruid]

I think it would have been in everybody's interests if the BCCI werr to find some means to absorb the ICL rather than trying to smash it into the ground as is the case right now. If even despite all the threats and the attempted manhandling form the BCCI the tournament still isn't dead, and is still growing, really the BCCI should probably try find some way to benefit from it rather than trying make everybody who is party to it suffer because they do not run the show.

 

[Richard]

Maybe i didn't make myself clear- cricketers, like the rest of us, don't get paid for a 24 hour day. Their bank balance isn't going up while they sleep. There's certain contractual obligations they have to meet- showing up for training, coming to the matches, actually trying to win. What they do when not "on the job" as such is nothing to do with the employer, provided it's legal and doesn't interfere with the job they do. That's what the English counties found out this summer.

I see. I was under the impression that you could include clauses in contracts stating that competitors were not to be endorsed and these contracts would be affected if they were. Which players could accept or reject. I'm no back-to-front-of-the-book whizz on employment law.

And if the law is different in India, IMO it shouldn't be, for reasons that have nothing to do with cricket.

It clearly is, given no-one has taken the BCCI to any court over the situation.

Btw- NZ cricket told Bond it was okay for him to do both before he signed. Tragic man-management as per usual.

The ICL will not destroy international cricket any more than ITV destroyed the BBC. Do you honestly think, despite it being in direct competition with the BCCI, that if it were allowed to employ every international player in their spare time, it would refuse? It would say, "Hey, we're not having any of these part-time superstars who will make us all very, very rich. Instead, we're going to offer them non-negotiable contracts that mean they won't be released for international cricket, which they will in all probability turn down. And let our league collapse due to a lack of quality, thereby costing us millions."

The ICL working with rather than against international cricket makes much more business sense. What was surprising about them allowing Bond to be released for international matches? It was really obviously the right thing for the business to do.

Right now, those behind the ICL can offer international cricketers way more than they earn playing for their boards. Anyone who is more interested in earnings than their cricketing legacy (and that's not an unforgiveable trait) would quite happily take ICL over international cricket. The ICL could quite easily recruit based on that. Kerry Packer did.

 

[Richard]

I think it would have been in everybody's interests if the BCCI werr to find some means to absorb the ICL rather than trying to smash it into the ground as is the case right now.

I don't know about absorb, but they could quite easily rid the game of it, in the exact same way the ACB did with WSC - offered Packer's C9 the rights he wanted for it ITFP. If the BCCI gave Zee Test (and more significantly ODI and presumably IPL) broadcasting rights the ICL would be no more.

Evidently, though, they feel that they could do better by giving the rights to someone else. Which isn't, unlike any number of BCCI-propagated things, unreasonable.

 

[ret]

It's not a bad move by some of the BD players to play the ICL [that is if they didn't have any one to take them in the IPL] as playing for BD for a long time makes little sense if cricket is your only career option. Earlier we got to see the same thing happening with Zim players like Goodwin, who went to play in Australia. There is not enough money involved to go on playing for a long time for such teams

This brings us to the question of what should countries like BD do to see that its players see playing for BD as a long term career option? .... It's a catch-22 situation. On one hand you need these players to play for a long time as talent is in short supply and you need these players to make the team competitive thus bring in money and on the other hand, it's difficult to hold on to these players as they don't make enough to see playing for BD as a long term option

 

[Uppercut]

I see. I was under the impression that you could include clauses in contracts stating that competitors were not to be endorsed and these contracts would be affected if they were. Which players could accept or reject. I'm no back-to-front-of-the-book whizz on employment law.

I'm not much use on law myself- but obviously there's something to that effect, given the fact that counties weren't allowed to fire ICL players.

It clearly is, given no-one has taken the BCCI to any court over the situation.

Right now, those behind the ICL can offer international cricketers way more than they earn playing for their boards. Anyone who is more interested in earnings than their cricketing legacy (and that's not an unforgiveable trait) would quite happily take ICL over international cricket. The ICL could quite easily recruit based on that. Kerry Packer did.

The fact is, very few players do quit and join the ICL, particularly not in their peak years. If players were permitted to play ICL cricket when not playing internationally, the incentive to pack the international stuff in completely would be even smaller, it would be almost negligible. The ICL would be happy- they'd make a fortune- and international cricket would remain completely intact. The BCCI weren't having that, they wanted to make money of their own- hence the IPL.

In any case, that's how i've interpreted it.

 

[pup11]

Unsupportive structure led to decision to quit - Bashar.

This is the explanation the Bangladeshis have come up with.

 

[andruid]

Any idea where the next mass exodus is gonna break out?

 

[pup11]

Btw i could never figure out how playing in the ICL is any different from playing in county cricket, lets be honest what is the big deal in a player and going and playing in county cricket and earning a few bucks when he has no national duty or if he is not the part of the international team to him going and playing in the ICL, just because BCCI has a problem with ICL why should other boards be made to ban their players.

BCCI can afford to pay its players huge amount of money making it easier for them to ignore the lure of the ICL riches, but for smaller cricketing nations its not easy to stop their players from signing an ICL deal, as the kind of money that is up for grabs for players of these countries is just way too much for them to deny.

 

[pup11]

Any idea where the next mass exodus is gonna break out?

Sri lanka me thinks.

 

[Richard]

I'm not much use on law myself- but obviously there's something to that effect, given the fact that counties weren't allowed to fire ICL players.

Not neccessarily - perhaps counties had simply never thought to put such clauses in contracts?

I simply can't believe it'd break employment law to prohibit your employees from endorsing competitors. CricketWeb itself (admittedly a NPO, which isn't quite the same) has such a policy.

The fact is, very few players do quit and join the ICL, particularly not in their peak years.

You say that like the ICL has been going for decades.

If players were permitted to play ICL cricket when not playing internationally, the incentive to pack the international stuff in completely would be even smaller, it would be almost negligible. The ICL would be happy- they'd make a fortune- and international cricket would remain completely intact. The BCCI weren't having that, they wanted to make money of their own- hence the IPL.

In any case, that's how i've interpreted it.

As I say - I view it as that those behind the ICL would be prepared to tolerate compromise in a few cases in the short run, but that if they started to build-up more power they'd be capable of and willing to do anything to get more money. More frequent ICLs, with no release for players, is something I can quite conceive - that's what Kerry Packer did. And all he needed to do that was money - the players, young, mid-career and old, didn't care about giving-up international cricket because they wanted to earn more. I don't see any reason to suspect anything has changed there. So far there's miniscule number of players known undoubtedly to have knocked-back the ICL.

 

[Richard]

Btw i could never figure out how playing in the ICL is any different from playing in county cricket, lets be honest what is the big deal in a player and going and playing in county cricket and earning a few bucks when he has no national duty or if he is not the part of the international team to him going and playing in the ICL, just because BCCI has a problem with ICL why should other boards be made to ban their players.

The difference is that county cricket is run by what is effectively a sister company of the BCCI - ie, the ECB. The ECB and BCCI work together (not on an equals basis obviously) to run international cricket. The ICL is a completely different matter and is something run entirely for self-serving purposes.

 

[Uppercut]

Not neccessarily - perhaps counties had simply never thought to put such clauses in contracts?

I simply can't believe it'd break employment law to prohibit your employees from endorsing competitors. CricketWeb itself (admittedly a NPO, which isn't quite the same) has such a policy.

Hard to say now that you mention it. Players are employed to help their team win, not promote the competition they're involved in, so there's a distinct difference there too. In many ways it's not so different from someone playing Aussie FC cricket. Perhaps it's a grey area and that's why it went to court.

You say that like the ICL has been going for decades.

As I say - I view it as that those behind the ICL would be prepared to tolerate compromise in a few cases in the short run, but that if they started to build-up more power they'd be capable of and willing to do anything to get more money. More frequent ICLs, with no release for players, is something I can quite conceive - that's what Kerry Packer did. And all he needed to do that was money - the players, young, mid-career and old, didn't care about giving-up international cricket because they wanted to earn more. I don't see any reason to suspect anything has changed there. So far there's miniscule number of players known undoubtedly to have knocked-back the ICL.

I'd have thought any quality international cricketer who wants to play in the ICL can do- you don't think they wouldn't employ Pietersen or Symonds if they got the chance, surely? In any case, attempting to destroy international cricket is bad, bad publicity for them, so i don't believe they'd do it.

 

[Richard]

I'd have thought any quality international cricketer who wants to play in the ICL can do- you don't think they wouldn't employ Pietersen or Symonds if they got the chance, surely?

Pietersen is one of the very few who's known to have been offered and turned-down.

In any case, attempting to destroy international cricket is bad, bad publicity for them, so i don't believe they'd do it.

Of course, and so I'm sure they'd be keen to avoid being seen to do it (again we come back to the propaganda thing with Bond's contract), but I doubt they'd give a damn if they did. Or, at least, most of them. As a rule, as I say, TV supremo men are only concerned with the short-term (that is, short-term referring to 30 years rather than 2).