ACA rejects Singhco India’s plans of Assam T20 Premier League

Event management firm Singhco India Sports Management Private Ltd’s plans to conduct the Assam Premier League T20 cricket tournament has run into rough weather as the Assam Cricket Association (ACA) has decided not to hold the tournament under its banner.

The event management firm has even approached the Board of Sports of Assam to use the Guwahati Nehru Stadium to stage the league.

It has been learnt that the Assam Cricket Association has shot down the proposal of Singhco to hold such a league under its banner as it realized the futility of holding it. The ACA cited the examples of Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where such tournaments were held but fell flat on their face.

It may be pertinent to mention that the host associations while holding such T20 leagues incurred huge financial loss and such league met with little success with low crowd turnout and negligible electronic media coverage.

Insiders say players taking part in these leagues were not paid properly.

The ACA does want to antagonize the BCCI of which it is a member given the fact that the IPL 6 is round the corner.

Singhco India had drawn up plans to stage the league from March 15 to April 30. The firm earlier claimed that the ACA has given its go-ahead in May 2011 – something the Assam cricket body refused to buy. The ACA, on its part, wanted to keep BCCI in the know when it realized that the holding of the tournament would mean huge financial involvement.

The ACA did move BCCI about the holding the league but it failed to get any green signal from them.

The ACA is fully clear that if at all such a league has to happen in future, the state cricket body would proceed with a proper tender process. The cricket association does want to involve any party to hold a such an event without going through the tender process.

ACA wants to be absolutely sure about the standard of the tournament, players involved, the financial involvement, the spectator turnout, the telecast of the league, sponsorship before taking a final call on the league in future.

The ACA is apparently treading cautiously after it posted a loss of Rs 84 lakh hosting the last one-day international between India and New Zealand in 2010 due to a low crowd turnout.

Sources close to Singhco India say that the firm has indeed roped in sponsors for the league. The firm is not losing too much sleep about the crowd turnout and live telecast of the event as its objective is to provide a platform to the Assam players to earn big money playing competitive cricket.