The Board of Control for Cricket in India's multi-million dollar Indian Premier League has signed up into its growing fold Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik, two of his teammates and New Zealand's Brendon McCullum.
"Yesterday, Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan, Mohd Asif and New Zealand's Brendon McCullum signed up with the IPL, taking the number of international cricketers who have signed up so far to 29," said IPL's Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi.
"We are close to signing up more players in a week's time for the IPL which will start around April 16 after the completion of South Africa's visit to India (for a three-Test series)," said Modi, after the IPL's first governing council meeting in Mumbai on Thursday.
Modi also rubbished reports from the New Zealand players' council stating the IPL is offering the worst contracts ever by saying "no one has complained about the contracts when signing them".
The BCCI vice-president said the tournament will run for 44 days and have 59 matches, including two semi-finals and a final.
"Two matches will be held per day, at 5 and 8 p m, at different centres. The eight franchisee teams will have the option of playing with four foreign players on the ground but can sign up more if they want," Modi said.
Refusing to divulge financial details of the venture or about the names of the companies who have shown interest to be franchisee partners of the IPL, Modi said a lot of interest has been generated towards this end.
"The player auctions will be held in January, 2008. At the moment the players have been given a token amount by the IPL and after the auctions will be paid by the franchisees, who will reimburse us the amounts paid to them," Modi explained.
"All the players have been approached individually by the IPL and the contracts negotiated. They have signed a three-year contract," said the IPL-in-charge.
On the issue of media rights and telecast deals, Modi said three television production houses are likely to be signed up.
He clairified that the running of the IPL would in no way impact the holding of tournaments like the Asia Cup, scheduled to be held in Pakistan in April-May, 2008.
"IPL is like any other domestic tournament. Has running of domestic tournaments stopped international matches from taking place? That's the reason teams have been given options to sign up more foreign players if they want, with the condition that only four can play in a particular game," he said.
The franchisees would be decided through a tendering process, he said but again refused to disclose whether some of the country's top corporate houses have shown interest in becoming franchisees.
