> ICL to announce 37 Million Dollars Prize money!

Panchkula, Haryana: The Indian Cricket League (ICL) announced prize money totalling $37 million (Rs 150 million) for its inaugural Twenty20 championship, starting here Friday. The winner of the six-team event will pocket a handsome $1 million (Rs 39 million), Zee Sports chief executive officer Himanshu Modi announced here Thursday.
The runners-up will get prize money of $470,000 (Rs 19 million), Modi said.
Modi said the Essel group - promoters of the ICL - would spend up to $25 million on the inaugural event.
Much of the money is being spent on sprucing up the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex cricket stadium here up to the international standards and paying the players signed up by the ICL.
All six participating teams - Mumbai Champs, Kolkata Tigers, Hyderabad Heroes, Chandigarh Lions, Delhi Jets and Chennai Superstars - will get a part of the total prize money.
The teams coming third and fourth in the championship will get $370,000 (Rs 15 million) and $310,000 (Rs 12.5 million) respectively, while teams on the fifth and sixth slot will get $250,000 (Rs 10 million) and $210,000 (Rs 8.5 million).
Modi said that each team winning a match would get $45,000 (Rs 1.87 million), while every Man of the Match award will fetch $9,400 (Rs 375,000).
"The most valuable player of the tournament will not get any cash reward but something in kind. We are yet to decide on that," Modi said.
"It is mere speculation that sponsors are not coming for the event or have withdrawn. We have Provogue, Thomas Cook and others who are sponsoring the event. Once the championship creates a market for itself, more will follow," Modi said.
Essel group executive vice-president Ashish Kaul said that the Twenty20 championship was being held despite the odds.
"We faced numerous hurdles on the way. We were faced with comments that who will ever play for the ICL. We have proved them wrong. 250 players have enrolled with us, including top international stars," Kaul said without naming anyone as the spoiler of the ICL party.
The last few days saw speculation on one of the best batsman in the world, Brian Lara, being coerced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), for its new Indian Premier League (IPL).
Lara's late arrival for the ICL event only added to the drama. Lara, who holds the world record for the highest first-class score of 500 and the highest individual Test score of 400 not out, has been practicing here with the Mumbai Champs team for the last three days.
Modi said over 85 percent of the weekend tickets for matches have been sold and ICL was expecting a full house in the 6,000-capacity stadium.
Zee Sports will telecast all matches live while 25 channels of the Zee network will show all matches live for 30 minutes on match days.