Is ICL A Lost Episode?

With sponsors of each and every team ready to pour in millions of dollars by bidding each Tom-Dick & Harry, irrespective of his caliber in the sport called T20 cricket, even in the third edition of the Indian Premier League that is due to start on the first of March and thank god it is in India this year, the success of the same can well be guessed. However, at the same time, the so called rebel league by the BCCI and also the ones that laid the foundation for a league of its kind in India-the Indian Cricket League, is found nowhere making news whatsoever.

The last time the ICL was in the news was, on November 26th 2008, when the ICL sponsored ICL World series was in progress and had to end abruptly after the great 26/11 took over the news headlines. The last match until then and also till date was the one between ICL Pakistani vs ICL World, the result of which not being of great importance. From then onwards, ICL has only been history. Neither has any ICL sponsor came out with any new ideas nor were they slammed for not taking the leagur forward by the board members. All people who had voted and fought for the ICL are now found running for covers.

One reason for such a decline would no doubt be the BCCI who at first named the ICL as a rebel league, following which players featuring in the league were banned from international contracts by the BCCI. After the BCCI, every international cricket boards started following suit and started banning players from their international contracts as well. All these despite the ICL sponsors ready to release the players for their official duties. Following that was lack of the quality of cricket played in the ICL. There was hardly any sort of big hitting (that forms the funda of T20 cricket) or skill display from the players.

All that could be seen was the batsmen waving his bats which sometimes saw the ball cover the ropes. Second to that was the quantity, where there was just one season being played in a year. And during the remaining parts of the years, the player would have had to cool his heels at home, which is difficult at times for players who are love to sweat it out on the grounds. Stupidity lied at its peak when a so called world series in ICL consists of just 4 teams namely Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the Rest of the world. With all these, players start pulling off from ICL to join the their respective teams and also feature in IPL.

Now, the only next thing to happen is that sponsors who had bid on a team in the ICL also follow the players and come out to invest for a team in so that they don't waste funds anymore on worthless things like the ICL. But, what if the BCCI bans sponsors from the rebel league in investing in the IPL???