Champions League T20 set to be relaunched

Dubai: The men’s Champions League Twenty20 is poised for a comeback, with plans under way to relaunch the tournament as early as September next year.

The proposal received strong backing from key member nations during the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) annual conference in Singapore. The tournament, which originally ran from 2008 to 2014, was discontinued after broadcaster ESPN Star withdrew from a billion-dollar deal. At the time, the league was jointly operated by the BCCI, Cricket Australia, and Cricket South Africa, with revenue from the deal helping launch Australia’s Big Bash League, now one of the most commercially successful T20 competitions.

However, the T20 landscape has changed dramatically in the years since. With top players now involved in as many as four or five different franchise leagues annually, logistics and team selection are expected to be complex challenges for the revived Champions League. Ongoing discussions are also focused on how revenue will be distributed among stakeholders. Meanwhile, there are whispers of a separate T20 league circuit potentially backed by Saudi investment.

Alongside the T20 developments, the ICC is weighing major changes to the structure of Test cricket. A two-division system is under serious consideration, amid concerns that only a few nations are financially equipped to sustain competitive Test sides. The prospect of capping the number of Test-playing countries has also entered the conversation, driven by infrastructure and financial constraints in several Full Member nations.

To explore these structural reforms, the ICC has formed a working group tasked with reworking the global cricket calendar from 2027 onwards. The group includes Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg, ECB chief Richard Gould, and ICC’s new CEO Sanjog Gupta. Interim findings are expected to be presented to the ICC board, chaired by Jay Shah, before the end of the year.

Gupta, previously head of sport at Indian broadcasting giant JioStar, played a key role in a recent players’ body report on cricket’s crowded calendar. He has publicly emphasised that market demand will ultimately dictate how much Test and international cricket can be sustained.

“You have to make hard choices,” Gupta said during an MCC panel at Lord’s in 2023. “There are clear indicators of what fans want, and the data shows where the game is headed.”

“If you continue offering a product that fans no longer want, it will inevitably decline—and the ecosystem around it will suffer too,” he added, comparing the situation to the fall of BlackBerry, once a dominant brand that was overtaken by market shifts.

A final decision on the future format of Test cricket could be made before the year ends, sources close to the ICC’s closed-door meetings revealed.