IPL, a major issue for world cricket: ICC

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has ruled out a window for the highly popular form of 20-20 cricket, the Indian Premier League (IPL) in its Future Tours Programme (FTP), said Haroon Lorgat, chief executive, ICC on Wednesday.

Providing any concession to the IPL would mean creating windows for other domestic Twenty20 leagues as well, said Lorgat.

"The consequence of that (an IPL window) is what do we do with the Big Bash League? What do we do with other premier leagues -- Sri Lanka is launching one, Bangladesh has one," said Lorgat, who was here to present Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland the ICC's ODI shield as Australia finished on top of the ODI rankings in the 2011-12 season.

"I know people might say the IPL is the premier league, but once you provide a window for one particular member, you have to be conscious of the fact you may well have to do it for other members. Hence, why we have not been supportive of a window specifically for any one of those domestic leagues," he added.

The schedule of IPL's matches clashes with the schedule of other countries matches every year since the league has started in 2008, which has been a problem for world cricket.

This year, due to the IPL matches, many players of West Indies were not able to play fir their country and had choose between the IPL and their home Test series against Australia. The same condition will arise next year for New Zealand's player as they have the tour of England for a Test series next year during the time of IPL.

Sutherland said national boards are thinking on what they can do to allow their players take part in the IPL.

"I think there's a notional window already for the IPL. I think it exists. There's an inevitability around some overlap and countries are working around that to the best of their ability.

"There are challenges ultimately -- it's been raised with clashes from time to time. But I think there's a national window that most countries are working with and around, in order to allow their players the opportunity to play in IPL," Sutherland said.