No confirmation on new hirings in ICL

CHENNAI, September 3: The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is continuing with its spree of foreign signings, the latest being the name of just retired Andrew Hall of South Africa doing the rounds.
News reports from Australia said Hall has agreed to play the league but there has been no official word from either the marketing or the business heads of ICL.Former Australia player Dean Jones and cricket operations manager of ICL is said to be the man behind all the foreign hirings.
Meanwhile, here at the training camp, good weather finally smiled on the players as they took to nets in the afternoon at the sports village of Mayajaal complex on Monday.
Divided into two groups, fifty-six players went through a two-hour session. Coaches Balwinder Sandhu, Pranob Roy and Rajesh Kamath supervised the nets and fielding practice which was video recorded. But the real work will start from Tuesday when the players (divided into four teams) will play practice Twenty20 matches.
"We have planned a new method for this shortened version of the game," said Shishir Hattangadi, cricket consultant, ICL. "It will mark the first step of the new vistas and horizons we have envisaged for these players. They will be taught new skills of how to go about scoring and chasing wickets in the process. These players have been playing at the domestic level but will soon be competing against some of the top players of the world and hence need to be in top shape. The next fortnight will put them on this path," Hattangadi added.
The teams have been named Red, Blue, Yellow and Green and will be captained by Deep Dasgupta, R Sathish, Dinesh Mongia and JP Yadav respectively. Team Red meets Blue in the first match and the players of these teams were at the nets batting and bowling while the others had to be content with indoor batting and fielding practice outdoors.
Balls flew over the smallish ground as batsmen used the long handle to good effect.
The players will be in for more such sessions once coach Sandeep Patil and Madan Lal join the camp. The two are expected to be here on Wednesday and Friday respectively.