Mushtaq 'uncertain' about England offer

England's head coach Peter Moores who has close ties with former Pakistani leg-break bowler Mushtaq Ahmed from their time together at Sussex, believes the Pakistani can play an important role for England.

However, the 39-year-old Mushie, as affectionately he is being called, is unceretain about accepting the offer. "I am yet to decide on the issue," he said from Hyderabad where he is on an ICL assignment.

"The offer had not directly come from the coach. Only it came through my agent. Coach (Peter Moores) had just expressed passing remarks about myself."

The leg-spinner with googlies aplenty, Mushtaq Ahmed is styled on his hero Abdul Qadir. However, he will decide about England spin coach offer only after the battle between BCCI and ICL is resolved.

"I am more inclined to be associated with the Pakistani team (rather than England)," he stressed. His services were utilised by the former PCB bosses.

In fact his services were declined once by Dr. Nasim Ashraf when he was about to board a flight to India. "I was not allowed to come with the team at that time," Mushtaq recalled. "But once Nasim Ashraf realised about my dedication towards work, I was again assisting the Pakistani team."

Mushtaq Ahmed was a member of the supporting staff to the Pakistan squad for the last World Cup in West Indies, where coach Bob Woolmer lost his life.

BCCI president to meet ICL representatives

The Indian board has agreed to meet officials of the unsanctioned ICL, the first time the two sides will have met since the league was set up in April 2007. This was one of the two major decisions taken on the first day of the ICC board meeting in Dubai, the other being the selection of four Test series where the umpire review trials will continue.

ICL officials have welcomed the proposed meeting with Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president, and said they hoped for an "early resolution" to their quest for official recognition. However, a senior BCCI official said that nothing much should be read into the ICC board's decision, "because it does not in any way indicate a result".

The ICL has sought official sanction under Rule 32 of the ICC operations manual which pertains to authorised unofficial cricket. But siginificantly, Manohar and Lalit Modi, a BCCI vice-president, are on a five-member ICC sub-committee that has worked on "new regulations governing official and unofficial cricket" that were discussed at the board meeting today. ICL officials, however, indicated that they expected Manohar to meet Subhash Chandra, the chairman of Essel group that owns ICL, "very soon". "We will be in dialogue with BCCI and we hope the outcome suits all," Chandra said. "The ICL has always worked towards promoting the game and players," Himanshu Mody, the ICL's business head, told Cricinfo. "We hope the outcome of discussions between the BCCI and ICL will benefit players at large. We look forward to an early resolution."

The BCCI, apparently, views the situation differently. "The only resolution that can be looked at is one where the ICL agrees to operate within the BCCI's parameters," the official said. "Till then, the announcement of the meeting is just a statement of fact, and nothing more. It's not as significant as it is being made out to be." Manohar will provide a written report of his discussions with the ICL to the ICC board.

Since its inception, the ICL has been vehemently opposed by the Indian board, which has banned players associated with the league from all forms of official cricket and barred them from using any of its facilities. The ICL has, meanwhile, been pressing the ICC unsuccessfully for official recognition of their unsanctioned venture for several months. Subsequently they requested the ICC for a meeting, and Chandra met David Morgan, the ICC president, in London last week to present the Twenty20 league's case for recognition. The ICL is hoping for a status similar to the one that has been granted to the Stanford venture in the West Indies, but the crucial difference is that the Caribbean tournament has been endorsed by its home board, the WICB.

Delhi Giants grabs 13-run win over Rockets

A valuable knock of 43 by Paul Nixon enabled Delhi Giants post a competitive 167-7 in their alloted 20 overs against Ahmedabad Rockets in the ICL 20s Indian Championship here at the LB stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday.

Putting Giants in to bat after winning the toss, the Rockets bowlers dettered the batsmen from getting off to a flier. And then Heath Streak gave the first breakthrough as he returned opener Dale Benkenstein. He took two more wickets to finish at 3-23 in his four overs.

Abhinav Bali (35) and Nixon helped the Giants reach a good total.

Teams:

Ahmedabad Rockets: Damien Martyn, Ryan Campbell, Parviz Aziz, Murray Goodwin, Sridharan Sriram, Reetinder Sodhi, Anshu Jain, Heath Streak, Rakesh Patel, Sumit Kalia, Jason Gillespie.

Delhi Giants: Dale Benkenstein, Avishka Gunawardene, Abhinav Bali, Abbas Ali, Paul Nixon, Jai Prakash Yadav, Taduri Sudhindra, Shane Bond, Marvan Atapattu (Capt), Ali Murtaza, Shalabh Srivastava.

New Zealand's stern no to ICL rebels

New Zealand has asked its selectors not to consider Indian Cricket League-aligned players while picking the national team for future assignments.

The decision by the New Zealand Cricket (NZC) put paid to the hopes of Chris Cairns, Nathan Astle, Chris Harris, Craig McMillan, Hamish Marshall and Darryl Tuffey to play either in national or A teams.

"We have a preference that our selectors take into consideration the fact that that these guys have been playing in an unsanctioned competition, an event that isn't in the best interests of New Zealand or world cricket, and that we'd rather that they didn't play," said NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan.

"I don't think we can say that they're ineligible for selection. We'd prefer to say that the selectors will be encouraged to consider other players," he was quoted as saying by the Sunday Star Times.

While NZC fell short of announcing a ban on the 'rebel' players, it has been decided that the cricketers would not be allowed to hold contracts with the State Championship teams and their participation would be limited to playing for match payments on a game-by-game basis.

These Test cricketers played for the rebel ICL Twenty20 championship in Panchkula, Haryana, despite opposition from the International Cricket Council and its affiliates.

Of the 'rebel' players, Cairns, Harris, McMillan and Astle have announced their retirement from international cricket while Tuffey, and Marshall are likely lose out the chance to play for their country again.

Vaughan would soon convey the Board's decision to BCCI vice president Lalit Modi and the NZC official said, "There's an understanding that we don't support the ICL and that we don't want to give them unnecessary traction."

BCCI had earlier resented the inclusion of Tuffey in an Auckland XI that played the Bangladesh tourists, saying the selection of an ICL-aligned player undermined the agreement.

Source : http://www.cricketnext.com/

Delhi Jets field in ICL opener

About 15 years ago Kiran Powar was a bigger name in Mumbai cricket than his brother Ramesh. A left-hand batsman with a wide array of strokes, Kiran struggled to break into a powerful Mumbai batting order and switched allegiance to other states. He spent a number of seasons in Assam and Goa, during which time he made many long journeys by bus, and often, considering hotels were too much of a luxury, even spent nights in one. Frequently, with reimbursement hard to come by, he paid his own travel expenses. He even wasn't compensated when he was hospitalised once.

Today Powar enjoys the comfort of the Taj hotel in Chandigarh. He shares the same dressing room as Brian Lara and Nathan Astle. When I speak to him, he's having lunch with Vikram Solanki, Johan van der Wath and Danny Redrup, a South African physio who is "showing me the sort of fitness a cricketer needs". For the first time in Powar's life he has a sense of security. "Tell me one reason why I shouldn't join the ICL" he challenges.

Powar's isn't an isolated case. The general mood among the Indian domestic players who have joined the ICL is one of disgruntlement. "Until today none of us had an option," says a player who was picked for India a couple of years ago. "Now we have someone to take care of us. Wait for some time and players will just rush in."

The BCCI's apathy is a sore point. A domestic veteran talks about a prominent state association. "They made a big din about introducing central contracts for players," he says. "Finally, we said, we've got some security. And they give us an annual contract of Rs 25,000 [US$ 500 approximately]. Is that any sort of money for a year?"

Even more frustrating has been the handling of injuries. Shalabh Srivatsava, an Under-19 star who went on to do well consistently for Uttar Pradesh, travelled to South Africa for an expensive surgery. He is still waiting to be reimbursed. Rakesh Patel, the Baroda fast bowler who was selected for the Indian one-day side recently, underwent a similar fate. "The biggest problem is we can't play when we're injured," says Powar. "It means no reimbursement and no match fees. How do you survive?"

Redrup chips in: "This is exactly how rugby used to be conducted in South Africa during the amateur days. But things changed with professionalism."

The situation with the coaching staff who have signed up with the ICL isn't too different. Erapalli Prasanna, the former India offspinner, who was with the BCCI's ill-fated spin wing had had enough of being ignored. "By sending me to Nagpur and to Kolkata for short periods, the NCA [National Cricket Academy] sent a clear message that I was not required. The other signal I got was that the BCCI wanted to get rid of me. The spin wing is finished."

Sandeep Patil, who is currently coaching the Mumbai Champs, echoes those views. ""I waited for the BCCI to give me a suitable job to serve Indian cricket. Twice I had written to the BCCI president, Sharad Pawar, expressing my interest to be a coach of the India A side. I was assured a two-year contract, but after waiting for almost one and a half years, nothing came of it."

Mohammad Yousuf to face arbitration hearing

Mohammad Yousuf, the Pakistan batsman who recently pulled out of the Indian Cricket League (ICL), is set to face an arbitration hearing in Mumbai on December 15. Yousuf had signed with the ICL in the wake of his omission from Pakistan's squad for the ICC World Twenty20 before cancelling his contract after talks with the Pakistan board.

Yousuf then signed a national contract as well as signing up to play in the India Premier League (IPL), a recognised league that is run by four different national boards and is approved by the ICC.

The organisers of the ICL insist he can't join the rival league (IPL). "It's an open and shut case as far as we're concerned," said Ashish Kaul, the executive vice-president of the Essel Group who are organisng the tournament, told Cricinfo. "The contract clearly says he can't play in any other professional league."

Meanwhile the Pakistan board, who convinced Yousuf to cancel his contract, have assured their full support. "We will fully defend Yousuf, if he is taken to court using all legal means," said Nasim Ashraf, the chairman of the PCB.

Besides Yousuf, all of the ICL's other Pakistani recruits have decided to honour their commitments with the league. The most prominent among them is the now retired Inzamam-ul-Haq, who despite having signed on with the ICL, was given an opportunity to make his exit from international cricket in the second Test against South Africa. The others in the ICL mix are Abdur Razzaq, Azhar Mahmood, Taufeeq Umar, Imran Farhat, and Shabbir Ahmed.