Warne, Tendulkar to sign former stars for T20 league

CRICKET greats Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar are planning to start a new Twenty20 competition for former international players, reports said yesterday.

Unconfirmed reports say that Warne and Tendulkar have offered 28 big-name ex-players contracts worth $25 000 (R295 000) a match, with 15 Twenty20 games planned for the Cricket All Stars League over a 42-month period.

The Australian newspaper said players believed to have been contacted included Australians Brett Lee, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Glenn McGrath, along with Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff from England, and South African Jacques Kallis.

The Australian said none of the players it contacted wanted to discuss the proposal but there was concern about the push to sign a one-page contract with the promise of more details to follow.

“Warne is in Britain but has been actively spruiking [promoting] the idea. He hinted this year that he and Tendulkar had formed a business that would be launching during the year,” it said.

Cricket Australia had no com- ment when approached by AFP, but had said previously that anything that promoted and grew the game in new and emerging markets was good for cricket, as long as it did not use current contracted players.

Lee’s manager, Neil Maxwell, confirmed his client had received an offer to play in the Cricket All Stars League and would be seeking permission from CA to play.

“I can’t see anything wrong with it, it’s a group of retired blokes playing a game of cricket,” Maxwell told Fox Sports yesterday.

ý Meanwhile, incoming England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves was adamant yesterday he had made no promises to Kevin Pietersen about a possible return to test cricket.

Graves released a statement via the governing body’s website in his first public response to claims from Pietersen that he had received “incredibly deceitful” treatment.

Andrew Strauss, the new ECB director of cricket and Pietersen’s successor as England captain, said on Tuesday that a “massive trust issue” prevented the South Africa-born batsman’s return, even though Pietersen is England’s all-time leading runscorer across all formats.

That appeared to contradict earlier comments from Graves that a return was possible if Pietersen, in international exile since the team’s 5-0 Ashes thrashing in Australia last year, scored enough runs in county cricket.

But shortly after Pietersen made an unbeaten triple century for Surrey against Leicestershire on Monday, Strauss told him to forget about playing for England against New Zealand and Australia this home season.

That in turn led Pietersen, 34, to say he’d been “misled”. He went on to make an unbeaten 355 against Leicestershire.

But Graves had a different take on events: “I didn’t make any promises, There were no guarantees. I said he should make any decision on his future on that basis.”

However, Pietersen did not say he had been promised anything, but that if he did fulfil certain conditions he would at least be considered for England selection, which Strauss then denied. – AFP