NZC plays down rebel cricket concerns

A New Zealand Cricket board member Greg Barclay has said NZC is remaining vigilant about the threat of an alternative cricket structure but that there was no danger of its players being poached by another rebel establishment.

"I don't think our players are under threat at the moment," Barclay, NZC's representative at the ICC, told Sunday Star Times. He said the reports were "hype and speculation" at present and he was not aware of any approaches to players or venues in New Zealand to host any matches.

"It is quite possible that anyone organised could pick it up and run with it, and if they do it and don't do it right, it would be particularly damaging to cricket. There is nothing more we can do at the moment. It is business as usual. The real question is what does it all mean? Why are they doing it?"

Last week Cricket Australia chairman Wally Edwards had also described the reports as "highly speculative" and said CA would work with the ICC and other countries to protect the global interests of the game.

An ICC committee - comprising its chairman N Srinivasan, ECB's Giles Clarke, and Edwards - was set up to investigate the apparent new moves made by the Indian billionaire Subhash Chandra, owner of the Essel Group and also Zee TV, whose subsidiary Ten Sports owns home international cricket television rights for numerous Full Member countries including Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Chandra was the driving force behind the Indian Cricket League, a Twenty20 tournament that preceded the IPL but was crushed by the BCCI for being unsanctioned cricket.