(Cricinfo) Lalit Modi, chairman of the Champions League Twenty20’s governing council, said yesterday he was certain the tournament will result in the “rapid growth” of club cricket around the world. Modi also said there was a strong chance the Champions League would be taken to non-cricket playing countries as a means to expand the game’s reach and get other countries to embrace cricket.
“The Champions League has been developed to embrace club cricket all round the world,” he said on the day of the tournament launch in Bangalore. “It’s a place where we can find young cricketers who then play for their national sides.
The IPL is a great example of a domestic club-level tournament, and similarly nations around the world have club tournaments. The objective here is not to make money, it is to build the game, to build club-level cricket, to find and nurture new talent. Money is not the criteria. The objective here is that we have some of the best players around the world and we hope that in years to come the Champions League comes to symbolise what the UEFA [version] is to football.
“From this year itself the tournaments in countries like Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies will become more competitive. You’ll see players who were not participating in domestic tournaments who will now take part and do well. Before, once players graduated from their clubs, they became international players and if at all they went back to their clubs they hardly played a few games. But the rules of the Champions League are that you have to play for your club, and your club must win to participate here. You won’t get a chance to be here unless you’ve not played for your club.”
Dean Kino, head of business and legal affairs for the Champions League, said one positive fallout of this competition would be to give context to domestic cricket. “It increases the passion of grassroots cricketers to be involved for their states and provinces. If you look at the interest in the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash in Australia and the IPL over the last six months, you will see that the result of going to the Champions League has been hugely stimulating.
At the domestic level it will drive young cricketers to the game and that will build on domestic cricket and make it stronger.”
Modi felt there was no better format than Twenty20 to draw new audiences and one way to do so was to broadcast matches across the world in different languages. While the current focus is to take the Champions League to participating nations, there is a definite plan to expand the competition.