It’s time for a rethink on CL-T20

As another edition of the Champions League T-20 draws to a close, it’s time again to ponder if it was a success. Yes, the crowds in South Africa must have given some heart to the promoters of the event, but one is not sure whether it made enough TV eyeballs or business sense.

With every passing year, the CL-T20 seems like one big question begging to be answered: Is there any need for the event after all? Much like other years, the event has been shoehorned between the Twenty-20 World Cup and some high-profile international cricket coming up, leaving a clutch of top performers toiling it out only to a lukewarm response.

What may have spoilt the party this time was that only one out of the four teams from the Indian Premier League (IPL) made it to the semi-finals, but then the response was never quite overwhelming even when Chennai Super Kings or Mumbai Indians had their moments of glory in the last two editions. The concept, borrowed from football’s Uefa Champions League, today seems more like a parody of it and one cannot just wait for this one to pass.

Certainly, it’s time that the stakeholders of the event — the cricket boards of India, Australia and South Africa — went back to the drawing board. It was on the back of IPL’s stupendous success in its first edition that the Champions League was conceived, with Lalit Modi aiming to take his ‘product’ to the rest of the cricketing world. Five years down the line, when cricket fatigue seems to be taking its toll on its most saleable format these days, and even brand IPL is under some pressure for sustenance, CL-T20 seems to lack the viability.

The sole purpose of the event, at least on the cricketing front, is that it can be a good hunting ground for the talent scouts of IPL. It was an unheralded Kieron Pollard of Trinidad who went on to become one of the mainstays of the Mumbai Indians team, while this edition has also thrown up a few candidates for future auctions.

The likes of Gulam Bodi (Titans) or Neil Mckenzie (Lions), who occupy the top of the charts among batsmen, have shown they have what it takes to succeed in this format of the game. Mitchell Starc, who is already a hot property of the Australian pace attack, showed for Sydney Sixers that there is always a reward to be reaped even in this form of cricket if you are willing to run in hard and hit the deck.

The surprise package among the bowlers, however, has been Aaron Phangiso of the Lions team. A 28-year-old, this left-arm spinner showed the maturity to tie down some of the best batsmen of the world and had an economy rate of six going into the semi-finals.

Hoping to see them get into the ‘big league’ of IPL sooner than later!