Champions League T20 set to return

THE Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) is set for a comeback – and its second incarnation will be bigger and better.
Members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), who met recently in Singapore on the sidelines of the ICC Annual Conference, took a formal decision to revive the tournament featuring franchises of domestic Twenty20 leagues of different countries. If all goes according to the plan, the league may restart as early as next year.
Cricbuzz understands that the international boards will convene soon to work out the modalities of the league, particularly in view of the fact that many franchise owners have teams across multiple countries.
Addressing this cross team ownership structure will be a key challenge for the regulators, who are expected – as was the case previously – to form a Governing Council (GC) or a Board to run the league.
Another major challenge before the regulators will be to determine the scale and scope of the league. When the Champions League T20 was discontinued in 2015, franchise-based competitions existed only in a handful of major Test-playing nations.
Ten years on, the T20 landscape has transformed drastically and dramatically – leagues have mushroomed across the cricketing ecosystem, with even Associate nations like the USA and UAE running their own tournaments.
Countries such as Nepal and Canada have also joined this bandwagon. By the latest count, there are around 11 major franchise leagues globally, including The Hundred in England.
Identifying a window in a cramped calendar will be another challenge for the organisers who also will have to decide on the allocation of teams from the different leagues.
As in the previous edition, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its high-profile Indian Premier League (IPL) are expected to take the lead in the planned venture. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), which was not part of the earlier league, is also likely to be an active member as will be Cricket Australia (CA). Who else will be part of it is not clear, Cricket South Africa (CSA), one of the three founders of CL T20, may also be co-opted into the structure.
The CL T20, launched in 2009, was discontinued after the 2014 season when its founding three members – the BCCI, CA, and CSA – accepted a proposal from broadcaster Star Sports to shut down the league. Incurring heavy financial losses, Star offered a compensation package, which the three boards agreed to in 2015.
So it will all start where it ended. The new members will, before anything else, have to first float a tender to onboard a broadcaster. (Cricbuzz)