SIDR threatens to spoil McMillan, Klusenar party

Kolkata, Nov 15 (UNI) Cyclone ''SIDR'' threatens to play spoilsport with the Kolkata Tigers camp, which is supposed to begin here tomorrow with Lance Klusenar and Craig McMillan as their prime stars.

The cyclone is due to lash coastal Bengal around midnight and the forecasts spell heavy showers tomorrow.

The East Zone team consists of former England international Darren Moody, Irishman Boyd Rankin along with Sri Lankan Upal Chandana, South African Lance Klusenar and Kiwi Craig McMillan.

The team is being coached by former South African batsman Darryl Cullinan and will be assisted by Pranab Roy.

The ICL will have six teams from different zones, including Chandigarh Lions, Mumbai Champs, Calcutta Tigers, Delhi Jets, Chennai Superstars and Hyderabad Heroes.

The conditioning camp will be held till November 22.

The players from six teams will have some practice matches in Mumbai from November 23 to 27, before heading for Panchkula, Chandigarh, for the November 30-December 16 tournaments.

Delhi Jets will be coached by former India allrounder Madanlal with former BCCI selector and Indian middle-order batsman Ashok Malhotra likely to be his deputy.

Former India coach and swashbuckling batsman Sandeep Patil is set to take charge of Mumbai Champs.

Pranab Roy will assist Cullinan in the Calcutta Tigers side.

The league, seen as a rebel establishment to the Indian cricket board, will have its camp at the CC&FC ground. The announcement had already sent the CAB into a tizzy with the BCCI asking them to assure that no such steps are taken.

However, Essel group is a corporate member of the CC&FC and on that pretext Rohan Gavaskar, Deep Dasgupta and their colleagues along with the foreign cricketers could well have the practice.

CC&FC sources said, '' If the corporate members individually want to practice here, we can't stop them. '' The CC&FC and CAB are believed to have reached a consensus in which the former will host only ICL-organised camp and not any matches.

CAB president Prasun Mukherjee said he had already spoken to CC&FC management and got the assurance that no match would be held there.

It had also been taken care of that the players don't sport the ICL logo while practising. But it remains to be seen what happens.

Team: Craig McMillan (Captain), Parvez Aziz, Darren Maddy, A Jhunjhunwala, Lance Klusenar, Rohan Gavaskar, Upal Chandana, Deep Dasgupta, Abu Nachen, Shib Sagar Singh, Boyd Rankin, Mihir Diwakar, Rajiv Kumar, Syed Akhlakh, Subhomoy Das, Sujoy Tarafdar, Pritam Das, Ansu jain, Ali Z Zaidi.

UNI