India Cricket Forum’s Discussion on Growth of Twenty20 Format

Harsha Bhogle addressing the Indian Cricket Forum

New Delhi: The capability of the three teams from India to win the upcoming Champions League Trophy, the future of cricket vis-à-vis the growth of the Twenty20 locally and its spread globally, and the future of international cricket with cub cricket surging ahead.

These are some of the important topics that will be analyzed by some of the leading names associated with the game during the India Cricket Forum (ICF) 2010, which will be held at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on Tuesday, 3^rd August 2010. ICF 2010 is being organized by independent sports company Sportz Network Pvt Ltd, under its SportzPower Knowledge Series banner.

The distinguished panel for The India Cricket Forum has a fantastic array of speakers who all are associated with the cricketing world. They include Chief Guest Rajeev Shukla, BCCI Media & Finance Committee Chairman; Amrit Mathur, CEO, GMR Sports (Delhi Daredevils); Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands; Sanjay Manjrekar, former India Cricketer and Commentator; Harsha Bhogle, Leading Cricket Commentator; Aakash Chopra, former India Cricketer and Commentator; Alan Wilkins, former county cricketer and internationally acclaimed Commentator; Raj Nayak, CEO, AIDEM Ventures; Peter Hutton, Consultant, Sports Brand Media and The Bukhatir Group; Jamie Stewart, Managing Director, Commune Sports & Entertainment; Bobilli Vijay Kumar, National Sports Editor, The Times of India; Kadambari Murali, National Sports Editor, Hindustan Times; S Kannan, Sports Editor, Mail Today; Gaurav Kalra, Sports Editor, CNN IBN; and Shamya Dasgupta, Sports Editor, NewsX.

The Indian Cricket Forum 2010 will be anchored by Ayaz Memon, one of the leading Sports Writer and Commentator.

The Sessions will see the panelists discuss how Twenty20 clearly represents the future of cricket, at least as far as its growth locally and its spread globally is concerned. The last few years has seen T20 tournaments take hold in all main cricket playing nations with the Indian Premier League and the Champions League being the two most important events. Even as this template, built around club-based participation, spreads across the globe wherever the game is taking root, country versus country cricket, till now the mainstay of the global cricket calendar, is in actual fact constricting. And so too is the talent

Pool . India, the engine that drives world cricket, seems to be among the hardest hit on this front, what with the new age “stars” singularly failing to make the cut on the international stage.

Extending the point to the Twenty20 arena, the next big international fixture where there is active Indian participation is the Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa. Last year, the Indian teams failed to live up to their billing. Was last year’s showing an aberration or will it be more of the same this time round? And if so why? The India Cricket Forum 2010, only the second conference in SportzPower’s Knowledge Series after the landmark “India Football Forum 2010” held in May, has taken up this premise for discussion with a view to gaining a practical understanding of the implications it entails for all stakeholders in the game and a search for solutions, if any.

ICF2010 is presented by ESPN Star Sports. The Knowledge Partner is TAM Sports, and the Communication Partner is Zzebra Public Relations Ltd.