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Two of England’s leading international grounds, Lord’s and The Oval, are considering making an offer to stage some of the games in the Indian Premier League.

The IPL is still young, but their plans are ambitious and the cash pot seemingly bottomless. Although the venues for the initial games have already been allocated in India, there seems an increasing likelihood that other international venues will be also be used, as a way to promote the tournament around the world as much as provide world-class facilities.

Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, declined to comment to The Times, while a spokesman for the MCC also refused to make a statement.

Meanwhile, the Domestic Structure Review Group, chaired by Glamorgan chairman Paul Russell, will go before the ECB on April 9 and are due to suggest a radical response to the IPL. The committee propose two new Twenty20 competitions, the first of which would run in early summer along similar lines to the old Benson & Hedges Trophy of the 1990s. It would feature Minor Counties, the universities and Ireland and Scotland.

The second tournament, according to today’s Daily Telegraph, would be called the English Premier League, taking place at the height of summer and consisting of 21 teams in three groups of seven - with county sides supplemented by international players from India, Australia and South Africa.

“We wanted to see something radical come out of this committee,” an insider told the Daily Telegraph, “but instead it is as if they have put all the same balls into the hat, shaken them around a bit and taken them out again.

“The idea of restoring the old Benson & Hedges Cup under a different name is just crazy. What this needed is some vision, a different pair of eyes. The DSRG should have gone out and sought the input of the players, the press, television. What about city teams, for instance, rather than counties? If we don’t take this thing by the scruff of the neck, we will find that the game has been pinched off us by other operators.”

Source:Cricket News