With Twenty-20 tournament traveling to the other side of Atlantic, the shortest format cricket has really come of age. After the Indians getting bitten by the cricket bug, the Americans too seem to have been caught by the cricket fever badly. Styled mostly on Indian Premier League, an American Premier League has been conceived and it is going to kick off on October this year in New York. The tournament will be all of knock off rounds in which each side will face the other teams. This will be followed by semi finals and finals consisting of three matches. However, the American clone of IPL beats the original in one point, and that is APL is going to take place twice a year. This year, the upcoming cricket T-20 tournament is scheduled for October 6 to 26 and the next one will be held in April 2010 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

However, both the cousins are similar at one point and that relates to huge money. American Premier League means yet another money spinning project for the international cricket stars. Just like IPL, its American counterpart is also going to offer astronomical fees to its cricketers. Already three South African cricketers have been offered a very lucrative two-year contract which promises to pay the players a payment of $50,000 per tournament. In addition to that, the players would also be given share of match money from the game. However, the contracts require the players to take part in marketing campaigns across the US. The players would be acquired in the same way as IPL through bidding by the franchises. The franchise that makes the highest bid for a particular player would get the player.

The three Proteas who have received a call from APL are Nicky Boje, Andrew Hall and Lance Klusener. It was two years ago that these three cricketers signed deals with rebel Indian cricket league, ICL. Consequently they lost the job at their national team; CSA banned them from participating in South African teams after the ICC refused to recognize the ICL.

But with APL coming into the scene, the three South Africans are going to more than compensate for their loss. They will play for the (American) Premium World Team. The other teams appearing in the tournament are Premium India, Premium Bangladesh, Premium Pakistan, Premium Windies and home side Premium America. The development might have made Lalit Modi happy. He expressed his wish to take his brain child, Indian Premier League to US and China. With a large cricket loving community residing in US, the IPL chief is sure; the upcoming cricket event is going to be a big success just like our IPL.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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