Indian Cricket is at its Zenith, with the T20 WC, U19 WC and after beating the World Champiions in their den in the ODIs.
A great cricketing war is in the offing, as Dravid's Bangalore Royal Champions, Ganguly's Kolkotta Knight Riders & Sehwag's Delhi put on the warrior's clothes in IPL.
In ICL, we have a parallel League. The ICL matches have clicked. They are scheduled at peak TV Time, at 1900 to 2200 hrs, when people are glued to their TV sets.
Yesterday's match was thrilling. 90 runs off 60 balls situation. Chennai chasing Calcutta's 185 responded with Ian Harvey blasting 49 off 30 odd balls, till 19 year old Pritam Das sent Harvey's off stump cartwheeling with a magnificent delivery. In came Russel Arnold and he stroked his way through. The final situation was macabre - 4 runs needed off 2 balls and Arnold swung Chennai to victory with a four off the penultimate ball !
So thrilling ICL matches. In the offing are thrilling IPL matches.
Earlier, Craig McMillan, the Kolkotta skipper had blasted 69 off 40 balls and it was supported by Jhunjunwalla's 50 not and Rohan Gavaskar's blitzkreing 23 off 8 balls !. The average rate was good - 9 per over !
T20 is what the doctor ordered, as professionals cant afford to waste 5 days or even one day. Three hours of thrilling cricket is the need of the hour and no wonder IPL and ICL have risen to the occasion.
As Kapil said, one need not restrict the players of ICL. Youngsters who do well in ICL can be picked up by the national committee. It is healthy competition and in the near future, we will see an ICL World XI vs an IPL World XI.
Indian cricketers are benefited monetarily, as Dhoni got 1.5 million dollars. ICL also pays well and yesterday R Satish, the Chennai captain pocketed 25 lakshs for the team and the Man of the Match, Russel Arnold got 2 lakhs !
Now the focus shifts to the 26th, when Kumble's Knights take on mighty South Africa !
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