ICC will explore window for IPL: Lorgat

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London: Admitting that the lure of money along with a cramped international calender may push many players to give up their international career for Twenty20 Leagues, ICC has eventually agreed to "explore" a window for the Indian Premier League. ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, however, did not make any promise and revealed the new Futures Tours Programme post-2012 would be on the similar lines as the old one albeit with a focus in the IPL.

"We will explore that. We will look at all things. We are busy discussing the FTP post-2012, and we will have to look logically at what is right," Lorgat said.

"But it's very difficult for us to create a window for a domestic event, because that's not what the FTP is. The FTP is an international basket of fixtures. That's what it is," he was quoted as saying by the 'cricinfo'.

Lorgat said the ICC would need to keep in mind that if they created a window for IPL other similiar domestic leagues could also demand space in the international calender. "The rest of the domestic seasons for every member country sorts themselves out. You could feasibly (create an IPL window), but why would you do it? It's a domestic event. "If you do it in one domestic season, what about all the other domestic seasons? There could be many others that arise. The FTP is done by the members for international fixtures," he said.

Despite severe criticism from different quarters, Lorgat insisted he was satisfied with the balance of the FTP and said the new cricketing calendar will more or less be on similar lines. "If I have got some serious influence on the Twenty20 competition, it should be not much different to what we see today. That's simply because we are very fortunate that we have three viable formats. We know Twenty20 is hugely attractive. We've got to be careful how much of that dosage we pass onto the audience.

"We have to balance in some respect between Test, 50-over and Twenty20. I think at the moment we've got it right. It's attraction is unequalled, and here we are on the eve of a world tournament (World Twenty20)," he said. He also felt Twenty20 should not be expanded more at the international level in order to preserve the essence of Test cricket.