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The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have threatened counties with exclusion from cricket’s new equivalent of football’s Champions League if they allow their players to join the rebel Indian Cricket League.

The ECB are supporting the Indian Board of Control, who have outlawed the ICL, which is due to start this month, and established their own Twenty20 competition, the Indian Premier League, which is scheduled to get underway next spring.

The ECB have already warned English players that they could jeopardise their chances of playing for England if they sign up to play in the ICL. Now the ECB have also put pressure on the counties by warning them that their participation in the Champions League, which is due to be staged in India next October with a prize fund of £2.3 million, could be threatened if they have players contracted to the ICL.

England, along with South Africa, Australia and India, will provide two qualifiers for the Champions League from the domestic Twenty20 competition. The prize money on offer far outweighs anything available in county cricket, where the top prize is £100,000 for the winners of the County Championship.

Source:Cricket News