THE
Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament has been included in the final draft of a radical proposal to revamp international programming.
To be presented to the International Cricket Council's executive board in Dubai over the next two days, the suggested schedule takes into account the billion dollar explosion of Twenty20 cricket in India.
As revealed in The Australian yesterday, the proposal has each of the nine active Test nations playing each other over a two-year period in three-Test series.
The top four nations would then play semi-finals and a final in the third year, while the fourth year of the cycle would be kept free for "icon" series such as the Ashes.
The current future tours program, which runs on a six-year cycle, does not end until 2012 but the ICC has already begun discussing what will replace it.
Leading players and player associations have demanded a window be created for the IPL for fear that emerging cricketers will abandon playing for their country and instead take the big money on offer in the IPL.
A recent survey by the Federation of International Players Associations (FICA) found that more than half of the 64 players polled from seven of the nine active Test countries, including Australia, were willing to sacrifice the end of their international career for IPL money.
FICA chief executive Tim May, a former Australia spinner, has been a major advocate of a window for the IPL.
"The players and FICA feel very strongly that to preserve a healthy balance between club or franchise cricket (such as IPL) and international cricket, that the ICC needs to create a window in its international programming, or risk losing players permanently from the international cricket scene," May said recently. "Without such a window, international cricket will be weakened.
"That is a situation that we obviously want to avoid."
