Champions League Cricket
Champions League to begin on December 3
The inaugural Champions League Twenty20 will be played between December 3 and 10, instead of October, the organisers - the boards of India, Australia and South Africa - have announced. To accommodate the change, the first Test between Australia and South Africa in Perth has been pushed back from December 12 to December 17.
The eight-team tournament was initially scheduled to begin on September 29, the reserve day of the Champions Trophy, but the ICC was unhappy with its timing, given its close proximity to the Champions Trophy. It asked the three founding members of the Champions League to rethink, and they said they would revert in seven days.
It was expected last week that the dates would be postponed to early December, between England’s two-Test and seven-ODI tour of India.
No other international fixtures have been scheduled on those dates, allowing all players to participate. The tournament has been sandwiched between the India’s seventh one-dayer against England and the first Test in Ahmedabad, which start a day before and after the tournament respectively.
“We are happy that we were able to find a window during the first week of December for the inaugural edition of the Champions League Twenty20,” Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said. “There was a gap in between the one-day internationals and Tests [in India] against the touring England squad, which will enable both the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings (the IPL finalists) to regroup and focus on the inaugural edition of the Champions League Twenty20.”
Gerald Majola and James Sutherland, the chief executives of the South African and Australian boards respectively, said they had consulted the players, players’ associations and the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) - the hosts of the Perth Test - before deciding the dates.
“We were pleased with the WACA reaction that the new playing dates offer local fans, including corporate groups wanting to entertain at the cricket, good dates for pre-Christmas Test match enjoyment, and we also took feedback from players that the changes could be accommodated without compromising what will be a defacto World Test Cricket Championship bout between Australian and South Africa during December and January,” Sutherland said.
Majola told Cricinfo that the organisers have “conveyed the new dates to the ICC and they are fine with it.” The venues and commercial partnership details will be finalised in the coming weeks.
The Champions Twenty 20 League comprises the Twenty20 domestic finalists from India , Australia and South Africa, Pakistan’s winner Sialkot and England’s champion Middlesex. The competition was announced on July 30, with a total prize money of US$ 6 million which will be shared between all teams
Champions League to be held in India
The BCCI-backed Champions League Twenty20 tournament will be played this year in India but may not feature a team from England, Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has told Cricinfo. Modi’s statement comes on a day the English press reported that the ECB, which has been at loggerheads with the BCCI over issues regarding an international Twenty20 tournament, was finalising a “rival” Champions League, to be held in Abu Dhabi.
The one organised by the Indian board, Modi said, will be held from September 29 to October 8 at three venues - Jaipur, New Delhi and Mohali. The tournament, details of which will be finalised in Mumbai on Wednesday at a meeting to be attended by officials from the BCCI, Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Cricket Australia (CA), has received “four separate offers of US$750 million each” for the commercial and TV rights for a 10-year period, Modi said.
The ECB will not be represented at the meeting and, Modi said, the tournament is also unlikely to include England, which “has been unreasonable” in continuing to object to various rules and regulations, including the ban on players from the unauthorised Indian Cricket League (ICL), the share-holding pattern and profit-sharing formula.
“We are going ahead with the tournament whether England joins up or not, “Modi said. “South Africa and Australia are fully on board with the various rules and regulations but the ECB is being unreasonable and continues to have objections to issues like the shareholding pattern and the governing structure. But we can’t wait any longer and we are going ahead. It’s now up to the ECB to decide whether it wants to join us or not.”
A report in the Sunday Telegraph said the ECB was involved in talks with the royal family of Abu Dhabi over a Champions League to be held there with £750m available over ten years. Asked about the possibility of the ECB organising a Champions League of their own, Modi said “they are welcome to do so” but added that no Indian team would participate in that tournament. “There is no question of any Indian team, including those from the IPL, participating in any other Champions League, whether it’s organised by the ECB or anybody else. Anyway, we must not forget that it’s the television revenue that decides the fate of such tournaments and it’s very obvious where that is headed right now.”
The BCCI’s Champions League originally planned to include the top two Twenty20 domestic teams from India, Australia, South Africa and England. With the ECB’s participation in doubt, Modi said a team from Pakistan has been confirmed while the last slot may be filled by a team from New Zealand or even Sri Lanka.
“I can confirm that Pakistan will send a team because even if the ECB joins us, only one team from England can participate, which is Middlesex,” Modi said. “As for New Zealand, Sri Lanka, or even West Indies, they will all be taking part from next year, anyway, when we expand to 12 teams. One of them will send the eighth team this year, if the ECB stays away and refuses to send even Middlesex.”
Kent, the other finalist in England’s domestic Twenty20 tournament, has players affiliated to the ICL and will not be invited, Modi confirmed. “Kent will not be invited but we will be happy to welcome Middlesex. But for that to happen, the ECB has to take a final call,” Modi said.
The dates for the tournament clash with a tour game for Australia ahead of their first Test against India on October 9 but Modi said the issue will be sorted out on Wednesday. Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey, who are part of the IPL’s Chennai Super Kings, which has qualified for the Champions League, are also expected to be part of the Australian team for that practice match in Hyderabad from October 2-5.
Modi added that the Champions League’s governing structure, profit-sharing formula and shareholding pattern, to which the ECB had objected, will be revealed after Wednesday’s meeting in Mumbai but confirmed that the BCCI owns 50% of the tournament.
IPL biggest match fixing threat: ICC
International Cricket Council (ICC) has expressed concern over multi-million dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) being susceptible to match-fixing because of twin reasons of excessive cash involved and the over-hype surrounding it.
ICC General Manager (Cricket) Dave Richardson said Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) Chief Sir Paul Condon in a presentation at the annual conference in Dubai has warned that “IPL brings with it the biggest threat to the game in terms of corruption since the days of cricket in Sharjah”.
“We are concerned. Let’s face it, the IPL is the first domestic competition which has attracted such huge interest and when it does it’s going to inevitably going to attract the interest of match-fixers and people like that,” Richardson said.
“And because of the interest created, there is no doubt that we would be concerned if the BCCI neglected that part of the game and didn’t make sure that they had very strict measures in place to ensure doesn’t take a foothold in the IPL or any other domestic competition for that matter,” he was quoted as saying by a cricket website on Thursday.
Richardson said Condon’s presentation was an attempt to inform the member boards on what is the current situation of corruption in the game.
“The purpose of the meeting and having the briefing from Lord Condon is to keep the members informed and so the message was clearly accepted by the BCCI.
“There is certainly no criticism intended on IPL or the BCCI. It’s just a fact of life that there is a lot of betting going on in cricket. And that because there’s so much money passing hands, inevitably the temptations are going to be there to try and get the players involved”.
Richardson said the IPL had many cricketers who would not have undergone ICC’s anti-corruption education process and could fall to softer approach by bookies.
“…you’ve got players who don’t necessarily go through the ICC education process… so it’s very important for the BCCI to make sure that those players who wouldn’t know what exactly going on because you know it’s normally a softer approach… How about a nice leather jacket or something… and then they get you like that. So as long as the players are aware of the dangers we should be able to keep it under control.”
On an IPL window in the Future Tours Programme (FTP), Richardson said it was difficult to say anything at this stage.
“Well ideally if you could create a window (for IPL) without jeopardising all other international tours obviously that would be an ideal situation.
“But the fact is apart from India and perhaps England all the other countries rely very heavily on their international tours or their bilateral tours.
“They don’t make money from their domestic competitions. so obviously we have to be very careful that we don’t create a out practically we would go for it. But to say that we’d definitely create a window it’s impossible to say at this stage,” said Richardson.
BCCI promises more Twenty20 showbiz
NEW DELHI: Buoyed by the roaring success of Indian Premier League (IPL), Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday promised more Twenty20 showbiz that will keep the country’s cricket lovers hooked on to television.
After IPL, the latest blockbuster from BCCI will be the Twenty20 Champions League to be hosted in India in late September this year and will feature top two domestic sides from India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and England.
The eight-day tournament will have a whopping prize purse of $10 million, double the amount given away in IPL.
The winners of the Champions League will take home $5 million, almost five times the amount of IPL champions Rajasthan Royals, who won $1.2 million. The runners-up will receive $2.5 million.
“There will be more sleepless nights for Indian cricket lovers,” a beaming Lalit Modi, BCCI vice-president and IPL Chairman announced on Sunday.
“IPL was a huge success. More than 99 million of the 135 million TV viewers watched IPL. We could not have asked for more,” Modi said.
Australia will be represented by Victoria and Western Australia, the winners and runners-up respectively of KFC T20 Big Bash.
The South African challenge will be spearheaded by Nashua Titana, who won the Standard Pro T20 league, and KwaZulu Natal Dolphins. England’s domestic T20 tournament is being played while Pakistan’s will have its tournament in August this year.
The IPL story is being emulated by other cricket boards as well and Texas Billionaire Allen Stanford has struck a deal with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to hosts a Twenty20 match between the two sides for five years for whopping $100 million.
Stanford is planning another tournament with four top cricketing nations.
“ECB and WICB are getting together for this Twenty20 event and it is for the good of the game,” said Modi.
BCCI, in its working committee meeting Sunday, lauded Modi for his efforts in making IPL a great success.
IPL salary cap to stay, says Modi
Indian Premier League Commissioner Lalit Modi on Tuesday ruled out lifting the salary cap on the franchisees from the second edition of the Twenty20 extravaganza.
Modi said in a statement that the players are legally bound by their three-year contract with their respective franchisees and they have to abide by that.
“The three-year contractual clause was made public to both the franchisees and players prior to the auction and the player’s participation.
“All the parties will abide by the terms and conditions laid down by the governing council and it is only up to the franchisee to trade a player/players as and when the trading window opens next year,” Modi said.
Presently, each of the eight franchisees can spend a maximum of USD five million for its squad, and players like Ricky Ponting has already opposed such moved, fearing it would lead to uneven contests.
The release said the players are bound by the contractual agreements signed with franchisees for a period of three years and new guidelines would be out soon before the transfer window opens early next year.
“…the DLF Indian Premier League will issue a fresh set of guidelines on the player transfer protocols for the next season keeping in mind the transfer window,” the release said.
“It would however, be the prerogative of the franchisee alone to take a decision to trade a player/players, when the trading window opens in the early part of 2009 just prior to the second season of the DLF Indian Premier League,” it added.
