Concerned over long-term effects of Indian Premier League’s money power, Australian captain Ricky Ponting has blamed the International Cricket Council for not acting in time to develop the Twenty20 format to its potential and trying to put lid on it.

Ponting said the luring private Twenty20 revolution in India was threatening to spoil the composition of national sides.

“The amount of money being bandied around here and the amount of money and power the Indian board, the BCCI, has, who knows how cricket administration worldwide is going to pan out,” Ponting said.

“Twenty20 cricket has been big at domestic level for most of this decade in England, then South Africa and now Australia.

“It was obvious by the crowds at that level that it was going to be big. If the ICC had jumped on it then and developed Twenty20 cricket to its potential instead of trying to keep a lid on it then there might not have been any need for an IPL to counter the rebel ICL,” he wrote in his column for The Australian.

LANGER PULLS OUT: Former Australian opener Justin Langer has ditched IPL for English county cricket.

Langer said he will honour his commitment to Somerset instead of playing for the Jaipur team in the multi-million dollar Twenty20 tournament starting on April 18. Langer had no takers when he was first put up for auction on Wednesday but Jaipur later got him for $ 200,000.