Greg Chappell at the news conference in Mumbai on Tuesday. (AFP)

March 4: The cricket broadcast war has spawned a new alliance.

Emerging Media, a UK-based firm that bought the Indian Premier League’s Jaipur team recently, has dumped the Zee group in favour of Sony for its forthcoming talent hunt show CricketStar T20.

“We have decided to part ways with Zee Sports, our broadcast partner for the previous season, for obvious reasons,” said Fraser Castellino, the chief executive officer of Emerging Media.

The Zee group, owned by Subhash Chandra, had floated the rival Indian Cricket League last April after a series of contract disputes with the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The BCCI replied with the premier league (IPL), which was launched in September last year.

Sony and WSG, a Singapore-based sports conglomerate, own broadcast rights to the IPL.

“Sony is very excited about linkages between a talent hunt and the IPL. The talent hunt for the second season of CricketStar20 will commence from March 5 and the reality show will be telecast in 13 episodes on Sony from April,” Castellino said.

Nearly 10,000 applicants from over 500 towns and cities across India have been short-listed for the reality show and invited for trials that will be conducted in the eight IPL cities — Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Mohali, Jaipur and Hyderabad — for further screening. Former India coach Greg Chappell will oversee the trials.

Twenty-four selected candidates will go to Jaipur, where the Emerging Media-backed Cricket Star Academy is based, to train under Chappell and fellow Australian Ian Frazer, the former bio-mechanic of the Indian team, and compete to become the next Reebok Cricket Star Twenty20.

The winner of the game show, whose chief sponsor is sportswear giant Reebok, will win a contract to play for Rajasthan Royals in next year’s premier league season.

Shane Warne, Mohammed Kaif, Munaf Patel, Justin Langer and Yusuf Pathan are part of the team.

“T20 is the future of cricket, but it will go through a lot of refinement in the next one to five years as the ODI has in the last 35 years. I am excited about it,” Chappell said.

Some of the finalists of the game show, launched last year to give unrecognised talent a platform, will be available to be picked up by other IPL teams.

“We hope to create reality TV cricketing stars.,” said an Emerging Media spokesperson. Last season’s Cricket Star Deepak Salunkhe is expected to be part of the Rajasthan Royals team this year.