Set to taken over by

LONDON: In a bid to pose competition to the Indian Premier League, England may “effectively abolish” its traditional county cricket structure and stage a 50 million pound Twenty20 tournament from June 2010.

“A blueprint has been prepared for a 50 million pound Twenty20 tournament to be staged in England which will rival the Indian Premier League. The radical proposal would see the county structure replaced by nine franchises based on the grounds that already stage Tests and One-day games,” the ‘ BBC Sport ‘ reported.

“They have said the event would be scheduled for June and July from 2010. The document of proposals for the 25-day spectacle will be put forward for discussion by the England and Wales Cricket Board this month,” it added.

It is also suggested that each squad would consist of 12 home-grown players, of which three must be under-23, with a salary cap of 1.5 million pounds.

The England and Wales Cricket Board, however, made its stance clear, saying “We don’t know anything about (the proposals). Nothing’s been presented to the Board yet and it’s not on the agenda for our next board meeting.”

But BBC Radio 5 Live cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew believes “This tournament would effectively abolish the long-established county structure.

“The smaller counties will see this as the beginning of the end… But the most controversial aspect is that the event is not going to be owned by the ECB, it will be a new company in which the ECB would be merely a stakeholder. It’s a radical suggestion - but it’s purely that at the moment,” it said.

The 57-match tournament is said to have the backing of MCC, Lancashire, Hampshire and Surrey. An MCC, however, spokeswoman declined to comment.

It can be seen as IPL the “Manoranjan ka Baap” has adopted English Cricket too.

Where does India Stand?

India: ICC’s Cash Cow

Individual Test Rankings: As per the latest ICC ranking available, none of the indian batsman has been able to be in top 10 slot, whereas in bowlers category our old wine Anil Kumble is still selling on counter number-8.

Name Country 1 K.C. Sangakkara SL 2 S. Chanderpaul WI 3 M.E.K. Hussey AUS 4 Mohammad Yousuf PAK 4 R.T. Ponting AUS 6 J.H. Kallis SA 7 M.L. Hayden AUS 8 D.P.M.D. Jayawardena SL 9 Younis Khan PAK 10 K.P. Pietersen ENG	Name Country 1 M. Muralidaran SL 2 D.W. Steyn SA 3 S.R. Clark AUS 4 B. Lee AUS 5 M. Ntini SA 6 R.J. Sidebottom ENG 7 W.P.U.J.C. Vaas SL 8 A. Kumble IND 9 Shoaib Akhtar PAK 10 S.E. Bond NZ

Individual ODI Ratings: In the batsman our new found brand ambassador MSD (read as “Mahendra Singh Dhoni”) is scaling new heights and is standing at 2nd position just after South African Captain Graeme Smith. Little Master Sachin Tendulkar is trailing not far behind but at 6th position. Bowling has always been india’s kamjor-kadi (weak link) and same is reflective in the rankings with no Irfan or Ishant Sharma being present in the coveted list.

Name Country 1 G.C. Smith SA 2 M.S. Dhoni IND 3 R.T. Ponting AUS 4 M.E.K. Hussey AUS 5 S. Chanderpaul WI 6 S.R. Tendulkar IND 7 Mohammad Yousuf PAK 8 A.B. de Villiers SA 9 A. Symonds AUS 10 K.C. Sangakkara SL	Name Country 1 N.W. Bracken AUS 2 D.L. Vettori NZ 3 S.E. Bond NZ 4 M. Muralidaran SL 5 W.P.U.J.C. Vaas SL 6 A. Nel SA 7 M.G. Johnson AUS 8 B. Lee AUS 8 J.E. Taylor WI 10 K.D. Mills NZ

Team Rankings:

Test Cricket: In this format of the game India has just managed a place in top fives with current standing at fourth place.

ODI Cricket:

India can proudly say they are at IInd best position, however a close look in the rankings suggests that four teams after Australia are fghting for margins to beat each other in the rankings table.