Astle, Cairns in hit list for possible ICL sign up

By Rico

More good news coming in for Zee Group-backed Indian Cricket League (ICL) with former New Zealand Test and one-day stars Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns having been targeted to sign with ICL.

New Zealand Cricket Players Association (NZCPA) has also given green signal to their cricketers willing to play in ICL, provided they do not cut across their contractual obligations with New Zealand Cricket Board (NZC).

Amid reports of Dean Jones luring over some big Kiwi stars for ICL, NZCPA manager Heather Mills said all the players who will be on New Zealand Cricket (NZC) contracts would be free to play in Subhas Chopra's ambitious cricket leauge, provided they seek a clearance from NZC, which he said could not be unreasonably
withheld.

He considers players as individual contractors, not employees, so as long as a cricketer is able to fulfil his obligations to NZC he can go and play for another entity.

He gave example of Stephen Fleming and Scott Styris, who will be playing county cricket in England when their new NZC contracts kick in.

He meant to say that New Zealand players who have national contracts with NZC can play for ICL when they are not doing national duties. This is surely good news for ICL though no currently NZC contracted player has been approached so far.

However, the NZC is unlikely to grant temporary releases to the contracted players this year because of their packed international calendar, which includes the innaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September followed by a month-long South Africa tour from November 9 till December 2.

Images: cricketfundas.com; in.rediff.com

Kiwis set to take flight to Indian Cricket League?

(Subhas Chandra announcing ICL. Photo/ Zee News)

By Kowalski

An interesting bit of news is coming from the usually quiet Kiwi Land.

Rumour is rife that a couple of top New Zealand cricketers have been lured into playing in the rebel Indian Cricket League by Dean Jones, one of the Directors on the board of this shrouded in controversy league.

But to my utter disappointment, Shane Bond is not one of them. The pacer says no one has shown any interest in him so far and he couldn't care less.

Well, it's a pity for fans like yours truly if he is not one of those high-profile names that have been finalized by Jones because I don't think they'd be bigger than Bond.

But even as we wait for these mystery names to be out in open, greats like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have already shown their interest in playing in this so called rebel series.

Looks like Subhash Chandra is all set to give BCCI a run for their money!