Organisers of a rebel Twenty20 league in India on Thursday offered a massive 3.85 million dollars in prize money, claiming it to be the biggest booty ever offered in a cricket tournament.
The Indian Cricket League (ICL), starting on Friday, will see the winner of the six-team competition pocket one million dollars alone, raising the bar for the rival league backed by the country's cricket board (BCCI).
"This is for the first time in the history of Indian cricket that the total money for a tournament is rupees 15 crore (3.8 million dollars)," said Ashish Kaul, executive vice-president of Essel Group, promoters of the event. "The prize money allotted for the winners exceeds international standards and will create a new trend in the Indian cricket parlance," he said in a statement.
The runners-up will receive prize money of 470,000 dollars. The unofficial league is bankrolled by Subash Chandra, whose two-billion-dollar Essel Group includes the country's biggest television network Zee Telefilms.