 The Indian Cricket League has finally taken the ICC and the two cricket
boards, English and Indian to the court. The official reason that has been mentioned
by the ICL is that they have done it because of the unlawful ban that on all those
players who were associated with the ICL in any form - player, coaches, administrators,
support staff and so on.
The notice was given by a UK law firm, Ingram Winter Green, which is said to
have claimed that "the barring of ICL players from international cricket,
particularly the county circuit, violated England's restraint of trade laws".
England has a stringent set of trade laws and have been embroiled in many such
controversies before as well, starting from the times of the Kerry Packer
World Series Cricket.
It also claims that the BCCI "engaged in a range of activities clearly
calculated to deter and prevent prospective players (and others) from involving
themselves with ICL". It remains to be seen how BCCI responds to this charge.
The English cricket board has been named the first respondent, and the BCCI
and the ICC as the second and the third.
Earlier, the ICL had offered amnesty to its players, who had left the league
to return back to the international fold. This meant that they went back to
playing for their respective boards, and some of them now play domestic and
international cricket for their respective countries, like Abdul Razzaq
and Naved ul Hasan Rana. Tony Greig, one of the mainstays of the ICL
had earlier said, "If the players are seeking reinstatement in order to
play first-class cricket in India and are also trying to break into the
IPL then it's natural that there will be a view that the ICL is winding down."
The ICL has asked the defendants to respond within the seventh of December.
The ICL is owned by the ESPL group and they have been named as the first claimant,
whereas there have been some unnamed players which have been named the second
claimant. However, the identity of the players has been hidden for now. The
notice has claimed that right from the start the ICL has been met with a hostile
reception from the BCCI, and that has been an issue that they have been trying
to resolve for some time.
It said, "Early approaches in correspondence in which the ICL aimed to
achieve co-operation [with the BCCI] were rebuffed by BCCI."
Both, the BCCI and the ECB have refused to comment on the issue.
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