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The Twenty20 Champions League is an international Twenty20 cricket competition between clubs from Australia, England, India, Pakistan and South Africa. The competition is being launched in 2008 as a response to the success of national Twenty20 domestic cricket leagues, most notably the Indian Premier League. Its first edition is set to take place in October 2008 in India.

Background

An international tournament for domestic cricket teams is believed to have been first mooted by Lalit Modi, chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 1996. The launch and subsequent success of Twenty20 cricket some years later was the influence behind a serious effort to get such a tournament off the ground.

Twenty20 cricket was launched by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2003. Its launch was a result of a long-term decline in the popularity of county championship and domestic limited-overs cricket. By reducing the number of overs per innings to twenty and by placing a three hour limit on matches, the format was designed to attract a younger crowd and to boost attendances. Twenty20 proved a success, with an international version launched in 2005 and a World Twenty20 Competition held in September 2007. This proved much more popular than the 50 over Cricket World Cup had been just five months previously. The following year, the Indian Premier League (IPL) was launched, proving that there could be a market for a big-spending domestic Twenty20 cricket league. The success of Twenty20 and the IPL lead many commentators to suggest that other forms of cricket would suffer, with some worrying about the effect of the popular fast-paced 'slogging' game on players' abilities in Test cricket.

Immediately after the end of the first series of the IPL, the cricket authorities in England, India, Australia and South Africa entered into discussions to create a new international club competition, to capitalize on the this success. The new tournament's £2.5m winning prize was described as "unprecedented" in cricket. A number of different formats for the tournament were considered, with original proposals containing a much lower prize fund. The T20 Champions League's creation was announced on 7 June 2008, along with the announcement of planned restructuring of some of the domestic cricket tournaments invovled, including the introduction of franchising in South Africa, England and Australia. Pakistan's participation was always mooted, but not confirmed when the tournament was first launched. Following a series of discussions and the announcement of the creation of a Pakistan Super League from 2009, it was confirmed that two Pakistani teams would compete.

Format

Qualifying

The T20 Champions League is expected to be contested between 10 teams from 5 countries. The qualifiers are:

• The winners and runners-up of the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash in Australia
• The winners and runners-up of the Standard Bank Pro 20 Series in South Africa and Zimbabwe
• The winners and runners-up of the Twenty20 Cup in England and Wales
• The winners and runners-up of the Indian Premier League
• The winners and runners-up of the ABN-AMRO Twenty-20 Cup from Pakistan

Tournament

The Twenty20 Champions League will be played over a ten day period and will consist of two divisions competeting in a round-robin format. The top two teams from each division will then move on to an elimination round to the finals.

Teams

Teams that will be taking part in the 2008 Twenty20 Champions League can be found below. Although the tournament was originally rumoured to only include teams from Australia, South Africa, India and England, it was annouced on 4 July, 2008, that two teams from Pakistan's domestic tournament were also invited.

Team	Country	Winner/Runner-up in Domestic Tournament	Domestic Tournament
Victoria Bushrangers	Australia	Winner	KFC Twenty20 Big Bash
Western Warriors	Australia	Runner-up	KFC Twenty20 Big Bash
Rajasthan Royals	India	Winner	Indian Premier League
Chennai Super Kings	India	Runner-up	Indian Premier League
Titans	South Africa	Winner	Standard Bank Pro 20 Series
Dolphins	South Africa	Runner-up	Standard Bank Pro 20 Series
TBC	England	TBC	Twenty20 Cup
TBC	England	TBC	Twenty20 Cup
TBC	Pakistan	TBC	ABN-AMRO Twenty-20 Cup
TBC	Pakistan	TBC	ABN-AMRO Twenty-20 Cup

England's Participation

The organizers of the tournament confirmed that any team competing would be banned from fielding players who have competed in the Indian Cricket League, a rival to the Indian Premier League. As a result of this, England's participation in the tournament was put in jeopardy. For the the 2008 season, 15 of the 18 counties fielded 25 players from the ICL.

Results

References

1. ^ Cricket Champions League unveiled BBC Sport 07-06-08 Accessed 08-06-08
2. ^ T20 Champions League Confirmed Cricket365 07-06-08 Accessed 08-06-08
3. ^ Everything you wanted to know about the Champions League Cricinfo Accessed 09-06-08
4. ^ Twenty20: Past, Present and Future India Twenty20; Accessed 08-06-08
5. ICC Thrilled With 20-20 World Cup Success - Next Edition To Be Held In England In 2009 Crickinfo 29-09-07 Accessed 08-06-08
6. ^ Bohse, Mihir BBC Sport 02-06-08 Accessed 08-06-08
7. ODIs may reduce to accommodate Twenty20: Dravid Kotian, Harish Rediff News 05-06-08 Accessed 08-06-08
8. Pakistan invited to Champions League - Ashraf Cricinfo.com; 04-07-08; Accessed 16-07-08
9. http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/asiacup/content/current/story/359725.html
10. Champions League bans ICL players BBC Sport; 22-06-08; Accessed 22-06-08
11. http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/359566.html

dubai

• Professional sports leagues
• 2008 establishments
• Twenty20 Champions League