As the ICL gears up for its second season, Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Essel group, which owns the league, has said he is confident of the conflict with the sport's global administrators being sorted out "within two years."
"I met David Morgan, the ICC president, on October 7," Chandra said on Thursday. "I don't promise you anything, please don't have any hopes ... It took Kerry Packer two years to resolve the resolution [with the Australian board]. I am confident our issue will be resolved within two years."
The meeting, which took place in London, was in response to a request from ICL officials who are seeking official sanction from the ICC. Morgan is expected to report on the meeting to the ICC Board, which meets in Dubai on October 14 and 15.
Chandra also had cause to cheer closer home, revealing that three sponsorships contracts out of four worth $8 million that had been cancelled were revived after a meeting with Sharad Pawar, the former Indian board president. Chandra met Pawar, currently the ICC's president-elect. "I spoke to Pawar, my friend of the last 25 years, last Friday. I was very categorical that such attacks had to stop henceforth. Out of the four [sponsorship] contracts three have been revived after the meeting."
He said he had conveyed to Pawar his disappointment over what he called the "unethical" tactics used against the ICL and those associated with it. "I asked him, 'Is it good for you? Is it ethical? Does it befit you that a 21-year old boy from a college in Mumbai is picked up physically by the joint secretary of the Mumbai Cricket Association and pulled out of the ground?'"
Asked whether this was the last chance for a reconciliation, given that Pawar takes over the ICC presidency in 2010, Himanshu Mody, the ICL's operational head, told Cricinfo they would explore alternate options if it didn't work out. "Such things cannot take one year," Mody said. "If it doesn't happen now, it will happen soon. I don't think it will take one year to get the sanction, if the sanction comes. If that (ICC reconciliation) comes through, perfect. Life changes, business plans change. There are a lot of players willing to join and there are lots of grounds that are still available. We can get them."
Chandra and Tony Greig, a member of the ICL executive board, also had cautionary words for the league's players on the "possibilities of corruption" during the second season. "You have seen lots of press that Twenty20 cricket has possibilities for corruption," Greig said at a pre-tournament meeting with players and officials on Thursday. "So please be very careful. There will be people who will approach you. It happened last time; it will happen again. We will dig ourselves into a hole if it happens."
"People who didn't want the ICL to succeed ICL would say, 'What ICL? It's not going to succeed,'" Chandra said. "They said, 'Match fixing happens there'."
