Bowlers worldwide may not exactly rejoice but for legions of his admirers, it could not have been better. Brian Charles Lara is coming out of retirement and the batting maestro would be seen in action in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) later this year.
Struggling to get the vote of approval from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) , the Zee group-backed ICL staged a coup of sort by roping in Lara, arguably one of the best batsmen ever to have graced the game.
Himanshu Mody, business head of Zee Sports, said
We’ve signed up Lara, he will be playing and captaining one of the teams.
ICL has also roped in some of the former players including India’s lone World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev, his teammates Madan Lal, Sandeep Patil, Kiran More and Balwinder Singh Sandhu in different capacities.
Among foreigners, former England captain Tony Greig and Australian cricketer-turned-commentator Dean Jones have also joined the executive committee of the ICL.
BCCI, however, has not been very kind to ICL, which it sees as a potential rival. Recently, Kapil’s effort to get the Sector 16 Stadium in Chandigarh for the event was shot down. BCCI has also warned its state associations and the players to steer clear of ICL.
Kapil is caught in the crossfire between BCCI and ICL and the former allrounder has been asked by the BCCI to choose between the ICL job and the chairman’s post he holds at BCCI’s National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.
Undaunted by the BCCI attitude, ICL authorities have decided to go ahead with their ambitious plan and netting Lara would definitely be a major boost for them.
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