ALL-STAR CUP WITHOUT THE ALL STARS
By CricInfo365 Editor, Rick Eyre
The “International All-Star Cup” set down for San Francisco, New York and
Toronto early next month edged closer to farce yesterday, with the
tournament organisers forced to release a heavy watered-down list of
participating players.
Earlier this month PostMedia Group (PMG), a US-based media and entertainment
group run by and targeting expatriate Indians, announced a three-match “Asia
XI v The World XI” series of limited-over games to be played in early August
at San Francisco (3Com Stadium), New York (Columbia Stadium), and Toronto
(the Stardome). More than thirty players were named originally, the Asian
team including the best players of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
and captained by Mohammad Azharuddin, the World XI said to be captained by
Steve Waugh and including players from all remaining Test nations.
Despite claims by PMG that all players had agreed to take part, there were
some obvious committment clashes, especially with those involved in county
cricket and the England-New Zealand Test series. The series was not
sanctioned by the ICC - though it is not known at this stage whether PMG had
made an official approach to the ICC for their support.
Over the past fortnight since the initial announcement, the unavailability
of many of the originally-listed players became obvious. Apart from the
obvious impossibility of the appearance of England and New Zealand players,
Pakistani players were removed from the list - presumably for reasons
associated with international tensions between India and Pakistan over
Kashmir.
Yesterday both the Australian Cricket Board and the United Cricket Board of
South Africa announced that none of their contracted players would be
released for the series. PMG, deprived of the Waugh twins, Shane Warne and
Adam Gilchrist by this decision, have responded by naming three non-
contracted Australians.
Former Australian off-spinner Gavin Robertson, retired Australian Test
captain Mark Taylor, and Paul Reiffel, who announced his retirement from
international cricket last week, are included in PMG’s latest team list for
the “World XI”. While Taylor no longer plays representative cricket at any
level, Robertson is under contract to Cricket New South Wales, and Reiffel
likewise to the Victorian Cricket Association. Reiffel’s sudden decision to
retire from the international game last week was based in part on his
unwillingness to embark on the Australian tour of Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe due
to family committments.
On top of these announcements comes the unsurprising revelation that the
BCCI has declined to release any of the current Indian national team to take
part in this series. The Indian players have a heavy schedule ahead of them
in official tournament play beginning in the last week of August in Sri
Lanka, followed by one-day series in Singapore, Canada and Kenya in the
following six weeks. In their place PMG have named a number of ex-
internationals including retired players such as Maninder Singh.
A number of leading West Indian players including current captain Brian Lara
and former captain Courtney Walsh are listed in the World XI lineup. The
stance of the WICB in relation to this series is not known.
In a report published on the PMG-owned India Post website and attributed to
the “India Post News Bureau” yesterday, PMG CEO Romesh K.Japra said “The
problem is not at the level of individual players. They are all more than
willing to come. But we are facing some obstacles from national and
international cricket authorities who are not inclined to let them
participate.”
Dr Japra was reported as saying that there was pressure being exerted by
national boards for the All-Star Cup not to go ahead. “But that has only
strengthened our resolve to go ahead with the series which millions of fans
in North America are looking forward to,” he was quoted as saying.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that all invited players were offered $ US
25,000 each to take part in the tournament.
The teams, as re-released by PMG yesterday, are as follows (and the spelling
is theirs):
"Asia XI: Arjuna Ranatunga, Arvinda D’ Silva, Sanath Jayasurya, Chaminda
Vaas, Vikramasinghe, Jayawardane, Navjot Sidhu, Vinod Kambli, Maninder
Singh, Vijay Yadav, Atul Wasan, Praveen Amre.
World XI: Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams, Courtney Walsh, Phil Simmons, Ridley
Jacob, Marvin Dhillon, Chander Paul, Gavin Robertson, Mark Taylor, Paul
Reiffel, Andy Flower, Neil Johnson, Henry Olanga, Ravindu Shah."
The first match is scheduled to take part at 3Com Park (formerly Candlestick
Park), San Francisco, on Tuesday August 3.