KEY POINTS:
ST JOHN'S, Antigua - Australia's champion paceman Glenn McGrath, who is retiring after this month's World Cup, says reports he has been approached to play in a rebel Indian series are incorrect.
McGrath said through a team spokesman today in Antigua: "Glenn can confirm that neither him nor him manager have been approached and his singular focus is on the World Cup."
The 37-year-old right-armer has been in sensational form, taking 12 wickets in Australia's first five matches.
McGrath has already passed Pakistan left-armer Wasim Akram's World Cup record of 55 wickets, moving to 57 ahead of Sunday's Super Eights clash with England in Antigua (starting 11.30pm AEST).
Organisers of a proposed unofficial cricket league in India are confident of recruiting the world's top stars in a move reminiscent of the late Australian media mogul Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in the 1970s.
"We will spare no efforts to get the big players," a source close to Zee Telefilms told AFP after India's largest listed media company unveiled a plan for the rebel series.
"We have already touched base with a few players and are in the process of contacting others. Don't be surprised if guys like (West Indies captain) Brian Lara play for us."
The Calcutta-based Telegraph newspaper says retiring Australia greats Shane Warne and McGrath have been approached for the series alongside ex-Test batsman Justin Langer and Michael Slater.
No India cricketer, past or present, has been linked to the series so far, AFP says.
Zee Telefilms said that six teams, each featuring four international players, two India stars and eight upcoming cricketers, will take part in Twenty-20 matches later this year.
Zee chief Subhash Chandra, who announced the series earlier this week, declined to name the players he had signed up for what is being regarded as a direct challenge to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The Indian Cricket League, as the series is called, will be expanded to limited overs cricket later, Chandra said.
The proposed league, which carries a winner's purse of more than US$1 million ($1.4 million), is reminiscent of Packer's World Cricket Series that took on the establishment in 1977.
Packer roped in the world's top players for the rebel series after being denied official TV rights.
The Indian board will discuss the Chandra proposal this weekend along with the fall-out from India's World Cup flop, which included coach Greg Chappell's resignation.
- AAP
