Solanki set to join rebel league

Vikram Solanki, 31, has played 51 one-day internationals

Vikram Solanki has become the third England player to join the rebel Indian Cricket League, BBC Sport understands.

The Worcestershire skipper is due to join fellow county captains Paul Nixon and Darren Maddy in a move that could end his international career.

Meanwhile, the England and Wales Cricket Board is putting pressure on the counties to reconsider allowing players to sign deals with the ICL.

However, the players are not bound by ECB contracts during the winter.

The ICL differs from the Indian Premier League, an officially endorsed rival league which is also attracting big-name players.

Solanki, 31, has played in 51 one-day internationals, the last in the summer of 2006.

He and Maddy both featured in England's Twenty20 squad which played in the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa in September.

Several national boards have threatened to ban anyone who joins the ICL, and though the ECB has not carried out a similar threat, they may yet do so.

Irish internationals Niall O'Brien and Boyd Rankin are due to fly out to India imminently as the fourth and fifth players from the counties to join the league.

And there are also suggestions that some county players from overseas are due to honour similar contracts.

But the ECB has emailed all the counties asking them to persuade those players to back down.

There are, for instance, threats that any county sending players to the ICL could be banned from the new Twenty20 Champions League starting in 2008.

Six nations will send their two best domestic teams to India for that lucrative event - in England's case it will be the finalists of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup.

A source close to the players told BBC Sport: "I don't know if the counties will stop the guys from signing up.

"But if the players have already signed contracts and consequently pull out then there's the potential for bounce-back action from the league.

"It would be a real mess if they suffered legal consequences."

Sixteen of the 18 counties have their players signed on six-month contracts, which effectively makes their players free agents from 1 October to 31 March.

That means there is no legal impediment to stop the likes of Solanki, Maddy and Nixon for being employed elsewhere in the winter.

Only Lancashire's players are on full-year deals, while Glamorgan's are on nine-month contracts.