Kapil to head Zee cricket board

Subash Chandra-promoted Essel Group today announced the executive board for its India Cricket League (ICL), a body parallel to the existing Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), to promote cricketing talent in the country. The board will consist of five members headed by former Indian captain Kapil Dev, and include cricket commentator Tony Greig, former Australian batsman Dean Jones and Kiran More, former chairman of the selection committee for the Indian team.

"It gives me great pleasure to lead the executive board of Indian Cricket League, Indian's first professional cricket league. I will try to utilise my experience for motivating and guiding players both as captain and as coach to take the young talent to the pinnacle of success. The format, the playing conditions and most importantly, the mindset of the players will be our focus," said Kapil Dev. The executive board will be responsible for the formation of the six teams comprising the league, selecting the talent from within the country to play in the ICL, laying out the playing conditions and formulating the rulebook, preparation of grounds and pitches.

The ICL, which was announced last month by Chandra, will initially have a corpus of Rs 100 crore and plans to set up residential cricket academies nationwide for nurturing young talent.

For creating infrastructure, the Essel Group is partnering Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Company.

ICL's six teams will comprise four international cricketers, two Indian cricketers and eight young talents each.

The number of teams will grow to 16 within three years.

The break-away league would initially be played in the one-day and 20-20 formats. The prize money is fixed at $1 million (Rs 4.3 crore).

However, the BCCI has raised objections to a separate cricket body.