CLT20 is history: BCCI discontinues flop tournament with immediate effect

It’s official now - the much-troubled Champions League T20 has been scrapped.

Confirming what’s been in the offing for a while now, BCCI issued a statement on Wednesday saying that an agreement has been reached by the Governing Council of CLT20 to discontinue the tournament with immediate effect.

The council, comprising representatives of BCCI, Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Cricket Australia (CA) arrived at the decision ‘unanimously’ considering tournament’s limited public following, the statement said.

Anurag Thakur, Secretary of the BCCI said, “This has been a difficult decision as the Champions League T20 provided added context to a number of domestic Twenty 20 competitions around the world such as the IPL in India, Big Bash League in Australia and South Africa’s Ram Slam T20. "

“It was a fantastic platform for players from around the world to showcase their talent and the participating teams thoroughly enjoyed the experience over the last six seasons. Unfortunately, off the field, Champions League T20 wasn’t sustaining the interest of the fans as we had hoped."

The CLT20 competition was launched in 2009 by the BCCI with CA and CSA. The six editions of the competition saw an IPL team win it four times - with Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians winning it twice each - and Australian teams winning it two others times.

The tournament had significantly lower viewership compared to the IPL and the ratings were further dependent on IPL teams going the distance.

The BCCI has been saying for sometime now that the upcoming edition of CLT20 that was scheduled for September-October would be done away with and another tournament, likely a shorter-IPL was being mooted. There is no official decision yet on what will be scheduled for the two month window that will be vacant in the Indian domestic calendar.

“This decision was made, after consultation with all our commercial partners and meeting the contractual obligations of all parties involved. Further details associated with winding down the league including settling with the three nations that had invested time and effort in the competition, will be completed very soon." Thakur said in the statement.

The decision to scrap CLT20 will also effectively mean that the BCCI and other stakeholders will find it difficult to organise a mini-IPL, which was being planned to fill the only vacant slot available in September. In all likelihood, the plans for a replacement tournament would be shelved for now.

Yesterday, star-studded the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals were suspended for two years from the IPL by a Supreme Court-appointed committee in a clean up of cricket hit by the 2013 betting scam involving their top officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra.

Meiyappan, a former Team Principal of India Cements Ltd (ICL)-owned franchise CSK and Kundra, co-owner of Jaipur IPL that runs Rajasthan Royals (RR), were suspended for life from any matches conducted by BCCI.

Seen as a clean-up of the mess following the worst scandal that broke out two years ago in the popular cricket league, the punishments were handed down by a three-member panel headed by former CJI R M Lodha which was asked by the Supreme Court to decide the quantum of punishments after finding them guilty of betting.

Citing the Supreme Court’s observations in its January 22 order, the committee held that the actions of Meiyappan, considered the face of CSK, and Kundra had brought into “disrepute” the game of cricket, BCCI and IPL and they deserved no leniency.

Shocked by the order, the owners of CSK, whose top players include top India players Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, held discussions with their lawyers and have planned to move the apex court against the panel’s decision.

Similarly, the Rahul Dravid-mentored RR, whose players include stand-in India captain Ajinkya Rahane and Stuart Binny, were also said to be planning moves to seek relief.

Since it is a Supreme Court appointed committee, entrusted with the task of giving the quantum of punishment, experts feel the teams may not get the relief they expect.

With inputs from PTI