Admittedly a concept borrowed from its hallowed European football counterpart, Champions League's anthem has some oohing and aahing and also some lines like "Only the best, only champions". A bit misleading, considering that in the first edition, Delhi Daredevils were the table-toppers but not the eventual champions. And this year, the Deccan Chargers (in captain Gilchrist's own words) "saved their worst for the last" with spectacularly miserable performances in the semi-final and most dubiously, in the third place play-off against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, handing the Bangalore side a lucrative opportunity to play in the Champions League T20.
Be that as it may, a tournament which will see domestic sides from Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies (technically, the comprising nations which form the West Indies cricket team) has much to offer, not least, the clashes between those teams which will never get to play each other in any other tournament. In addition to this, it will also provide an interesting insight into whether an assembled squad (like the IPL teams) are better value for money or the teams that play the domestic tournaments for a longer period of time (South Australia, Chevrolet Warriors, Central Districts to name a few) are superior.
Due to the nature of qualification, few sides have players who could play for the domestic team as well as the franchise which bought them and thus, the franchise has had to compensate the domestic team for the services of the player(s) in question. Royal Challengers Bangalore had no other option but to pay Victorian Bushrangers, Chevrolet Warriors, and Central Districts $200,000 each for the services of Cameron White, Jacques Kallis, and Ross Taylor respectively. An expensive exercise, but given the massive prize money on offer (something around US$6 million), you can hardly blame them.
This is how the groups are set up:
Group A (the domestic league champions)
- Central Districts Stags (New Zealand)
- Wayamba Elevens (Sri Lanka)
- Victorian Bushrangers (Australia)
- Chevrolet Cape Warriors (South Africa)
- Chennai Super Kings (India)
Group B (the runners-up or third place finishers)
- Mumbai Indians (India)
- Highveld Lions (South Africa)
- South Australia Redbacks (Australia)
- Royal Challengers Bangalore (India)
- Guyana (West Indies)
Given the fact that there are only two groups, the number of matches will be significantly reduced when compared with the first edition. This is because the top two teams from each group will contest the semi-finals, following which will be the final. Also, there is no concept of home-and-away matches here, since each team plays the other only once in the group stage. It is also interesting to note that, for a variety of reasons, there are no teams from Bangladesh (no domestic T20 tournament), England (conflicts over scheduling), Pakistan (the PCB chose not to send representatives in response to snubbing of Pakistan players in the auction preceding IPL season 3) and Zimbabwe (international regulations and lack of relations with few national boards). In fact, this was the reason why the format of the tournament changed in the second edition.
On paper, there are a couple of teams that look like going all the way: Victoria and Bangalore. While Victoria who have won the domestic KFC Big Bash four times in the last five years boast of genuine home-bred match-winners in stand-in captain David Hussey (original captain Cameron White will turn out for Bangalore), T20's premier batsman Brad Hodge and the deceptively quick Dirk Nannes, Bangalore are endowed with an embarrassment of riches in the batting and bowling departments, with seasoned veterans like Kallis, Kumble, and Dravid complementing young tyros Taylor, Kohli, and Steyn among others. However, T20 is a fickle-format and who dares on that day over a duration of 40 overs wins.
