ILT20 overseas quota worrying ICC full members
ILT20 will be looking to rope in the best players
The International League T20 has emerged as another marquee event in the shortest format, further expanding the horizon of global T20 leagues.
Notably, the teams in the league can field a maximum of nine overseas players.
More importantly, international players from across the globe are being offered a lumpsum to participate in the event. This has become a headache for the cricket boards as they are afraid of losing their star players during their respective series or leagues, which are supposed to collide with the ILT20.
In fact, the full members raised their concerns at the recently held ICC AGM in Birmingham. However, ICC's CEO, Geoff Allardice, has stressed that the league fulfilled all the criteria, which led to its approval by the International governing body.
He further said that the ICC only has the sanctioning authority over Associate member leagues, and it has no regulation regarding the maximum number of overseas players a team can field in the event.
"The league (ILT20) complies with the ICC's regulations as they stand at the moment. The ICC only has any sanctioning authority over Associate member leagues. In our regulations there's no cap on the number of foreign players that can be used."
On the other hand, Mubashir Usmani, general secretary at the Emirates Cricket Board, countered the argument of the full members stating that there is no formal regulation regarding the maximum number of foreign players and the number nine is just an arbitrary one.
So there is definitely a cold war going on between the league's administrators and the full members. All we can say is it's the game of power and money, and it will be interesting to see which party wins this battle in the future.
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