June 02, New Delhi

Soon after BCCI granted amnesty to 79 current cricketers, Buchanan said it was an opportunity for KKR to rope in some of the players to revive their fortune in the IPL."We`ve shortlisted about half a dozen Indian batsmen in the ICL. Now we`re just waiting to hear back from the IPL as to how they will approach this issue of letting players in - if there will be a draft or an open market," Buchanan told a website.

The Australian said he always felt KKR lacked local talents and it hurt them badly in IPL II, in which they finished at the bottom."I said right from the outset that we were short of quality Indian top-order batsmen and that is still the case. The ICL has released quite a few players in the last little while. There are quite a lot of good, young Indian batsmen among them and I think that is a situation that could work well for KKR," Buchanan said.

Incidentally, Buchanan`s own future does not look secure with the franchise amid reports that owner Shah Rukh Khan might sack the Australian after the team`s dismal show in IPL II.Asked if he expected to return to India for IPL III, Buchanan said, "I do at the moment".

He, however, admitted things may not pan out exactly the way he wants and said, "It`s all under review at the moment. There`s lots of conjecture out there at the moment, but it will come down to what the team wants and how the owners feel. Nothing is finalised. Shah Rukh was not over there for the final stages of the tournament. I have spoken with (co-owner) Jai Mehta, but he said he had been finding it difficult to get in touch with Shah Rukh."

79 ICL players make exodus and rejoin BCCI fold

In a major exodus, 79 rebel players took advantage of BCCI's time-bound amnesty offer and deserted the Indian Cricket League to return to
official, mainstream cricket.

The BCCI on Tuesday said in a statement that the cricketers snapped their ICL ties to immediately become eligible for domestic cricket and would also be considered for international matches once they complete their one year cooling off period.

Among the 101 players and others who have deserted ICL, bankrolled by the Essel Group, were former internationals Rohan Gavaskar, Deep Dasgupta (Bengal), Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Sodhi (Punjab) and Hemang Badani (Tamil Nadu).

The 11 former cricketers who have quit the ICL are ex-Test skipper Ajit Wadekar, spin legend Erapalli Prasanna and 1983 World Cup-winning Indian squad members Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal and Balwinder Singh Sandhu.

Most of them were tied up with the ICL as coaches. Significantly, India's only World Cup-winning skipper Kapil Dev, who is the chairman of the ICL's Executive Board, has not severed his relations with the league along with former Test stumper and ex-Chief Selector Kiran More.

"The BCCI, after scrutinizing their requests, has written to the concerned state associations that these players are eligible to play in the domestic tournaments for this year", said BCCI secretary N Srinivasan.

The BCCI secretary said that guidelines with respect to participation in Indian Premier League will be intimated in due course.The Indian Board has already decided that such persons will have to serve a one-year cooling off period before becoming eligible to play international cricket for the country.

Though the ICL has been virtually emptied out of its Indian players, the rebel league put up a brave front and said that the league is not shutting down and will recruit new talent as and when it's needed."We still have 40-50 players, out of the original 140-odd, on our roster and as and when the need arises we would recruit fresh talent. The League is on. We are not closing down. The next season is in October-November and it's still early days", an ICL official said.

Landers said that in all there were around 85 Indian players in their roster till the second season, out of which 77 have left their fold now."We had already left out two of them", he pointed out, one of them being Mongia who had been suspended in October last for allegedly under-performing along with former New Zealand all rounder Chris Cairns.