The UAE’s Cashed-Up T20 League Is Ready To Make A Serious Mark In Cricket

After months of conjecture, stirring heated debate on the ICC board and beyond, the new cashed-up T20 league in the UAEUAE
is ready to launch on January 13.

As I reported in May, the-month long tournament wants to be the world’s second biggest T20 franchise league behind behemoth the Indian Premier League. It’s made a good start by offering top players around $450,000 – the highest purse outside of the IPL.

It is being played at an optimal time for notoriously hot UAE, but that means ILT20 will be going head-to-head with other T20 leagues, including the inaugural edition in South Africa and Australia’s long-established Big Bash League.

Unsurprisingly, the healthy remuneration on offer has helped the ILT20 poach a number of headliners from the BBL. National governing bodies have felt the strain of retaining their best players with Cricket Australia needing to pull out the stops to keep star batter David Warner who is about to end a nine-year BBL absence.

Unlike other leagues, the ILT20 has more room for international players with teams potentially able to field up to nine overseas players compared to the commonly accepted four foreigners per side rule in established T20 franchise leagues.

This caused considerable angst, especially from Pakistan with its T20 league to start right in the aftermath of the ILT20. Then Pakistan Cricket Board boss Ramiz Raja had been a particularly vocal critic of the ILT20 allowing up to nine overseas players per team and had told me in September that he hoped to further debate the issue at last November’s ICC board meeting.

But nothing ensued and ILT20 officials have backed the tournament’s structure. “We prefer to applaud the commitment we’ve received from the franchises to include a minimum of two UAE-based players in the starting XI, as well as sign-on players from our fellow Associates,” Mubashshir Usmani, the boss of Emirates Cricket which has sanctioned the privately owned league, told me.

“Speaks volumes about how this league intends to develop players and expose them to the make-up of a professional T20 league. This is a long term vision which supports our drive for sustainability and player growth.”

The ILT20 doesn’t just loom as a flash in the pan for a league based in the somewhat sterile surrounds of the UAE, which is headquarters for the ICC and boasts a sizeable South Asian expat community.

It is backed by a sizeable broadcast deal and financial muscle. Three of the six franchises in the ILT20 are from IPL owners, whose tentacles are stretching globally to stoke fears over the primacy of international cricket.

Unlike the new South African league, branded an ‘IPL satellite’ due to every team having an IPL footprint, the ILT20 has some diversity and an American touch with Desert Vipers owned by businessman Avram Glazer’s Lancer Capital.

Glazer, owner of Tampa Bay Buccaneers and co-owner of soccer giant Manchester United, has been previously unsuccessful in trying to purchase an IPL franchise in his bid to get in on the increasingly lucrative T20 franchise scene.

Gautam Adani, who is currently ranked No.3 in Forbes’ real time list of billionaires, also owns a franchise.

The influential backing, which has spooked competitors, is hoped to underpin cricket development in the UAE, which is a rising nation who played at the recent T20 World Cup.

“(The league) has agreed to fund the first year central contracts for the UAE women’s team and also pick the cost of full time women development officer,” Usmani said.

“We can share that the franchisees are in the process of formalising development programs to be run annually, which will have a significant impact on UAE cricket and will assist Emirates Cricket to manage funds that would otherwise have to be spent.

“There are very clear goals that, by the sanctioning, the Emirates Cricket Board wants fulfilled and we are committed to fulfilling these.”

The groundbreaking tournament is clearly the biggest in a non Full Member country – the 12 leading cricket nations who receive more funding and power than the rest.

The ILT20 is hoped to serve as a template for Associate countries often shunned by Full Members.

“We firmly believe that UAE cricket has the opportunity, through the processes and initiatives we have and will be implementing, to set an example for those that need to become self-sustainable,” Usmani said.

After much-anticipation, and perhaps trepidation from some quarters, the ILT20 has finally arrived and you suspect it’s here to stay.