The importance of the Champions League
For a lot of people the Champions League Twenty20 is just a crass extension of the IPL. And in some ways it is. The cheerleaders, the commerciality, the general feel of the competition. All mirror the IPL because it is derived from and driven by it.
But there is one important difference – the quality of cricket.
Whilst it becomes increasingly clear that the IPL contains too many distractions, is too drawn out and is too contrived to lend itself to cricket of the highest quality, the 2009 Champions League was a good quality tournament with a good, compact format. The performances of the three IPL franchises were a marker of the quality of their league – i.e. roughly on a level with the counties, but nowhere near the Australians or South Africans.
The 2009 Champions League saw good quality cricket in a compact format
Trinidad & Tobago provided the storyline, swiftly becoming the neutral’s favourite. Kieron Pollard made a name for himself with his brutal abuse of New South Wales and Daren Ganga showed that he might justify selection for West Indies as a specialist captain. But the Australian bowling attack was too much for the islanders when the two met again in the final, and they took the crown.
The two English counties, Sussex and Somerset, returned early and somewhat chastened after being outclassed. Somerset did manage a win, but overall both sides lacked nous in the batting department and gave themselves too much to do. Both spoke of their desire to return and offer a proper challenge next time around.
Counties conspicuous by their absence
So there is much to anticipate for the 2010 edition, which is being staged in South Africa. Except that none of the counties will be taking part. Because the scheduling clashes with the end of the county season and England’s ODI series with Pakistan, the Friends Provident T20 winners and runners up will not be travelling to South Africa.
This is not the fault of the organisers, comprising the BCCI, Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa. The ECB is not a main partner in the competition and so can not expect to be given priority. Nor is it the fault of the ECB – they can hardly be expected to tear up the domestic season and an international series for the sake of two, as yet unidentified, counties who could easily be on the first plane home again.
There has been a lot of talk in the last couple of years about creating an international window for the Indian Premier League to ensure that there is no conflict with national team loyalties. This problem only arises because the amount of money available for the IPL, which is merely a domestic competition, far outstrips that at international level. In April, ICC ruled out this possibility.
In pure cricketing terms, the IPL does not justify an international window.
The Champions League Twenty20 does.
A Champions League window?
The CLT20 has the potential to become a bridge between domestic and international cricket, offers a new twist to domestic competition and a chance for each nation to measure it’s domestic teams against one another.
At the moment it is only potential, but it’s a start.
Football’s Champions League, the inspiration for the cricketing version, is the main marker as to the strength of each of Europe’s major leagues. Debate over which is the best is almost endless amongst both media and fans. It is not hard to see how this could be the case in cricket as well.
For players too, the chance to test themselves against the world’s best is one of the reasons why they take up the sport professionally. Many of the players on show for the counties last year will never get the chance to play internationally, although it is also interesting to note that three of England’s World Twenty20 squad – Craig Kieswetter, Luke Wright and Mike Yardy – all played in the 2009 competition. Both Kieswetter and Yardy have broken into the squad since then.
The 2010 tournament is scheduled to take place over just 16 days, as opposed to the six long weeks of the IPL, so the ICC would have no problems fitting it into the schedule.
It has greater relevance than the IPL, and team loyalties are far deeper and more meaningful, both for fans and players.
With kind treatment and the right marketing strategy, the Champions League could become the marquee competition outside of international cricket. It would raise the profile of the teams involved, give young cricketers a chance to experience an atmosphere not far removed from international cricket, and increase the incentives within the domestic T20 competitions.
It also needs to represent each of the Test playing nations – this year England will be joined by Pakistan and Bangladesh on the outside. Currently there are a lot of divisions within international cricket (to put it mildly), and not just along traditional lines such as India/Pakistan and Asia/The Rest. Tension over scheduling and the fallout over the IPL scandal threatens to tear world cricket a new one.
Far more than the “allegedly” rotten IPL, the Champions League deserves to be coveted by ICC and the world of cricket, and it should be a given it’s own place within the cricketing calendar. It could just help to bring all those warring factions together.
Whether or not it will be remains to be seen.
Footnotes
[1] – The cover image for this post was obtained under a Creative Commons license from Wikimedia.
Comments:
1