ICL offers Rs 15 crore prize money

Chandigarh, Nov 29 (UNI) The Indian Cricket League will fire the first salvo against the Board of Control for Cricket in India, when its inaugural Rs 15 crore Prize Money Twenty-20 Cricket Tournament commences with a match between Chris Cairns-led Chandigarh Lions and Delhi Jets, skippered by Marvan Atapattu in Panchkula near here tomorrow.

Addressing a press conference Zee Sports Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Himanshu Modi disclosed that a total prize money of the tournament is Rs 15 crore (4 million dollars approximately).

The winning team would receive Rs 3.9 crore and runners-up will be rewarded with a purse of Rs 1.9 crore. The third position holders will get a pay cheque of Rs 1.5 crore and fourth position holders will fetch a team Rs 1.25 crore.

For the fifth and sixth positions, the prizes are Rs 1 crore and Rs 85 lakh respectively. There are other lucrative cash prizes for every match and Man of the Match.

Replying to a query, Himanshu Modi said that the Man of the Series would be rewarded in kind and not in cash.

Regarding sale of tickets for the matches, Modi claimed that for weekend matches, about 85 per cent of the 6000 seats had been booked in renovated and floodlit Tau Devi Lal Cricket Stadium.

Essel Group Vice-president Ashish Kaul, who also addressed the press conference said, ''We have overcome various obstacles to launch the Indian Cricket League. Our objective will be delivered tomorrow when first edition will become a reality.'' Chandigarh Lions, led by Chris Cairns, have majority of Punjab top ranking players in their line-up. Among them are Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Rajesh Sharma, Amit Uniyal and Love Ablish.

Other members of their team are: Imran Farhat, Harmish Marshall, Sarabjit Singh, TP Singh, Andrew Hall, Ishan Malhotra, Daryl Tuffey, Sumit Kalia, Chetan Sharma, , Bipul Sharma, Karanveer Singh, Gaurav Gupta and Harpreet Singh.Coach: Balwinder Sandhu.

Delhi Jets: Marvan Atapattu (captain), Neil O[Brien, Mohnish Mishra, Tofeeq Umer, Abbas Ali,,Paul Nixon, Date Benkenstein, JP Yadav, Ali Murtaza, T Sudhindra, Abid Nabi Ahanger, Sachin Dholpure, Abishek Tamrakar, Shalabh Srivastav, Abhishek Sharma, Dikshant Yagnik, Dhruv Mahajan, Abhinav Bali and Raghav Sachdev. Coach: Madan Lal.

The tournament will be telecast live on Zee Sports.

UNI