ICL gets Railway ground in Mumbai for camp

The breakaway Indian Cricket League might be struggling to find stadia across India to start...

The breakaway Indian Cricket League (ICL) might be struggling to find stadia across India to start their training camps for their respective zonal teams, but here they have had it easy. After training for a month at Mayajaal, a resort near Chennai, ICL’s Mumbai players will have their camp at the Mahalaxmi Western Railways ground from Friday.

ICL officials have yet to announce the final squad for Mumbai Champs team, that will include five international players, but speaking to The Indian Express, ICL official Gaurav Seth said: “We will have our training camp at the Western Railways ground here from Friday and the players have been asked to assemble on the previous afternoon.”

As reported earlier, the ICL is set to conduct a training camp at Kolkata’s Calcutta Cricket & Football Club (CC&FC), which is an affiliated unit of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). However, doubts are on about the availability of the venue.

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With Railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav giving the Railway cricketers full freedom to join the BCCI’s rebel league, it was inevitable that the Railway grounds would also be made available. Interestingly, the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has been playing many of their tournaments on this ground. Recently, the opening rounds of Times Shield was held there.

However, the ground is owned by the Railways, so the BCCI can’t really step in.

Speaking on this matter, BCCI’s Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty said: “We can’t do anything as the ground doesn’t come within MCA or BCCI jurisdiction.”

Former Mumbai opener Shishir Hattangadi will coach the West team, while Madan Lal will take care of Delhi, Pranab Roy is the coach for East, Rajesh Chauhan for Central and Balwinder Singh Sandhu for the North squad.