Plans for new US Twenty20 tournament revealed

Major League Cricket (MLC), at present the only body actually running national events in the US, has disclosed that it is in talks with a commercial partner with a view to launching a Twenty20 tournament in the US towards the end of 2006.

The news of the eight-team league follows on last year's ProCricket league, an almost identical venture which was launched amid a wave of publicity and brash promises. However, the product failed to fulfill expectations and the organisation left much to be desired. The business model was flawed and it is reported to have lost Kal Patel, the organiser, several million dollars. ProCricket failed to reappear in 2005 and Patel refused to answer any questions about it.

MLC appears to have a more robust framework, but the details given by Bernard Cameron, the MLC president, remained sketchy. "At least four on every team will be American players," he is reported as saying. "That means a professional cricket job for 32 American players right here in the US. We are still working on what salaries these players will be receiving - however, we have the best interest of our players at heart though we have to be realistic and take into consideration that they are not Test or ODI players."

One of the failings of ProCricket was that it promised many high-profile international players, while it delivered little more than a handful of former fringe cricketers.

Cameron has a lot on his plate. In November, MLC is running the US's inaugural National Interstate Cricket Tournament in Florida. He believes that the combination of the two tournaments will give home-grown cricketers more exposure and help them make the transition to the international side.