KEY POINTS:
Fifteen minutes over flat whites and pastries at a New Delhi coffee shop yesterday left a sour taste between India's squabbling Twenty20 cricket factions.
The first meeting in a bid to find common ground between the Indian board president, Shashank Manohar, and two representatives from the privately owned Indian Cricket League - including former allround great Kapil Dev - failed dismally.
The International Cricket Council had suggested the get-together during its board meeting in Dubai this week in an attempt to find peace. However a terse statement from the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, N. Srinivasan, that the two sides "failed to arrive at a common ground" was matched by the ICL reaction that the meeting was "a farce".
There are no plans for future meetings, and an ICL official has raised the prospect of legal action. The ICL, which began in April last year, maintains the BCCI produced an offer "that was simply not acceptable".
"It didn't look like the BCCI was ever serious to resolve the issue."
The ICL has just begun its second tournament, populated by players who are ineligible to represent their country at international cricket. The IPL, run by the Indian board on behalf of the ICC, has its second edition loaded with most of the game's best players in April-May.
The ICL is seeking official recognition by the international board. The BCCI is vehemently opposed to that.
And while the ICL believes that it has a solid argument for recognition within the ICC regulations on authorised unofficial cricket such as Hong Kong Sixes and Stanford Twenty20 events, there is a significant obstacle.
The five-man ICC subcommittee working on modifying the rules for official and unofficial cricket includes two senior Indian board officials - one being Lalit Modi, the powerful head of the IPL.
The IPL's eight franchises are meeting in Bangkok this weekend. Topics include raising the salary cap from US$5 million, and increasing the number of foreigners to 10 per squad.
* And from the left-field department, England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke has suggested his country could host neutral tests in cities with large ethnic populations.
Pakistan have not played a test this year and had the Champions Trophy postponed for security reasons. But Clarke has claimed in the Wisden Cricketer "Pakistan might get a better crowd in Leeds than Karachi".
"We have a large Pakistani community who are mad about cricket and it would be a great way to increase their involvement," Yorkshire chief executive Stewart Regan said.
* New Zealand players Nicola Browne and Sara McGlashan are among the top 10 on the ICC women's ODI batting rankings. Browne is at No 6, McGlashan No 10. England's Claire Taylor is No 1.
Mason and Browne are at No 7 and No 8 respectively on the bowling list, headed by Jhulam Goswami of India.
