From one champion to another...

You can now consign the damp squib of the Champions Trophy to the memory banks although I suspect many of you did long ago when South Africa’s progress was abruptly sniped on the 27th September. In my mind it has done little to suggest this format has survival instincts and in the months ahead it will be subjected to severe scrutiny as its future viability is discussed.

So now that event one has passed it’s time to focus on another champion event, the Champions League. For those of you who do not yet have that on the radar, allow me to fill you in.

The Champions League will be a very high profile event. It is the pinnacle of domestic cricket on a world scale. It gets underway in India this week and will be broadcast to 160 countries around the globe. The tournament brings together the most successful teams in domestic T20 cricket from seven cricketing countries who will battle it out for an astonishing US $6 million overall with the winners pocketing a cool US $2.5 million. This rich financial incentive will directly benefit the domestic teams and provide an enormously welcome boost for the game at that level.

Twelve teams will be competing in India and they will be divided into four groups of three each and will initially play each other on a league basis. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the second stage and four teams from the second stage will make it to the semi finals. A total of 23 matches will be played over a 16-day period in the inaugural edition of CLT20 from the 8th – 23rd October.

The teams competing this year will be the top 3 teams from the 2009 edition of the IPL, the top 2 teams from Australia, England and South Africa and top teams from West Indies, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

This will be the first time ever that the winners in domestic leagues from different cricketing nations will clash in a prestigious competition after the first was sabotaged by the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, literally days before kick off. It is a superb platform for domestic teams to perform at the highest level, whilst at the same time exposing these eager cricketers to some of the pressures and foreign conditions normally associated with the international game. It will be a perfect means to prepare players for the next step as they strive to reach their goal of representing, or improving performance for their countries.

Remarkably, of all the players that have been selected to compete in the various squads, 49% have already represented their respective cricket nations. Many more youngsters are just breaking onto the scene at this level and have the potential to reach their representation dream.

This ensures the standard will be high…. and obviously energy packed and stimulating.