The ICC has recently admitted in the cricket news that the lucrative lure of T20 leagues may tempt players to reduce or even end their involvement with international cricket and so ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat has now disclosed that the ICC is considering including a window for IPL in the FTP. However Lorgat reiterated his opposition to the expansion of T20 cricket at an international level which many in international cricket have currently been calling for.

The popularity of IPL notwithstanding, Lorgat expressed his confidence that most international cricket players still dreamt of representing their country in tests and ODIs and that that would remain a strong motivator for most. It is obvious that the ICC is reading the writing on the wall with the kinds of statements being made in the cricket news recently by players such as West Indian skipper Chris Gayle etc. who indicated that a demise of test cricket would not be a bad thing, and which caused an outpouring of criticism.  

"We would be foolish not to recognise that the environment is changing. It was unfortunate that Chris Gayle's comments were portrayed in that fashion. I'm sure on reflection he must be thinking twice about what he said, because if you speak to many, many players - and I do engage with the players - they still recognise Test cricket as the ultimate form of the game. They want to be tested and rated on that form of the game. Maybe Chris Gayle is appearing in a phase of his life where it is less important to him, but I can promise you that the younger generation of players that I speak to is far from the sentiment that Chris Gayle expresses," said Lorgat.

Given the popularity of the IPL among players and their unions the ICC may be considering creating an IPL window, but it does seem difficult to do so seeing that the IPL is a domestic cricket tournament and the ICC’s FTP deals with international cricket fixtures. Such a window, if created would in fact create a potentially disruptive precedent, because by this token such leeway would have to be accorded to other domestic tournaments as well.

Cricket boards have also been accused recently of greed and cramming too much international cricket into the schedules of national teams, as in the case of the hurriedly put together test and ODI series between England and West Indies that was recently concluded, which was outside of the ICC’s FTP. However as of now it would seem that the ICC is not too eager to promote T20 cricket at the international level and even if an IPL window is being considered there will be something of a wait for this to actually happen.

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

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