BASED on the evidence so far, the inaugural T20 Champions League is already proving a big hit. Although, sceptics do exist. Two tournaments started on the same day. One in Bengaluru, the other in Nagpur. There were no takers for the one in Nagpur (incidentally it’s called the Challenger Trophy) whereas the opening match of Champions League in Bengaluru, had all the makings of a superhit show. JP Duminy played a brilliant knock and the local outfit (Royal Challengers) lost even after posting 180 in 20 overs. It was some game. Really! Away in Nagpur, the likes of Dhoni and Harbhajan must have been ruing their luck and saying to themselves, “If only Chennai Superkings and Mumbai Indians had qualified, we too would have been playing in the Champions League.” Because that’s where all the action lay. Next to nobody was watching Dhoni and Harbhajan in Nagpur (not only on the ground, but also on the TV), while all eyes were on Bangalore. The sceptics are saying that there are not enough stars in the Champions League. Well, if Duminy, Kallis, Lee, Sehwag, Kumble and Dravid are not stars, it will be extremely entertaining to know who they are. And if Sachin, Dhoni and Harbhajan are not playing in the Champions League, it’s only because their respective teams did not qualify for this cash-rich tournament. Did we say cash rich? Cash rich, of course. The winners will be getting close to Rs 120 million and everybody else too stands to gain a considerable sum of money (from sponsors and so on). And the majority of them are only domestic players. Back in New Zealand and England, this league has generated a tremendous amount of interest. A friend of mine working for Radio New Zealand called in to tell me the other day, the kind of frenzy there is to know about the fate of the local team Otago Volts (sadly it didn’t do too well and is already booked to fly back home, richer in every sense for the experience though). Same for followers of Somerset and Sussex. It’s really a very big thing for these domestic players (more than we can imagine sitting here in India) to be put upon the big stage, where they are only a step away from fame, money, glamour and greatness. It is really something they can look forward to. It is the next big step for them.
Mahela Jayawardene of the Wayamba Team put it quite nicely when he said that most of his players had butterflies in their stomachs while playing against the Delhi Daredevils in front of a packed audience at the Kotla in Delhi. It was something they had not experienced before. Some sceptics again said that there were a lot of freeloaders and DDCA officials in the 30,000 throng at the Kotla. But the fact remains that the stadium was full, which is something one cannot say about the tournament going on in Nagpur. There was a headline in some paper somewhere saying “Dhoni, Harbhajan star in thrilling win”. Thrilling, really? Thrilling for whom? Not for Dhoni and Harbhajan, because in their heart-of-hearts they really wanted to be playing the Champions League. Not for the crowd, because there was hardly any. Not for the TV audience, because nobody was watching that game on the telly. The Challenger Trophy started off as a great tournament. I remember watching it at the PCA Stadium in Mohali in 1996 and one Sujith Somasundar (from Karnataka) scored a hundred in one of the matches, and then Indian captain Sachin Tendulkar was so impressed with that knock that the next thing Somasundar knew, he was playing for the Indian one-day team. (It’s another matter altogether that Somasundar failed to grab his chance, but the match propelled him on to the big stage). Sadly, now the Challenger has been reduced to nothing. And the IPL and the Champions League are the big ones. These are the tournaments that can now propel you on to the big stage, the tournaments that can now transform you into big stars. Not the Challenger. (OK, Challenger is 50 overs-a-side and CL is 20-20, but when domestic players can earn millions by bowling four overs, where will the interest lie?) Let’s take an example. The Indian selectors are due to name the one-day squad for the series against Australia on Thursday. Some of them were there watching the Challenger Trophy, where opener Wasim Jaffer (that’s the standard of the Challenger now) scored more than 140 runs in one of the matches. So, do the selectors now pick Jaffer ahead of Sehwag and Gambhir to open the batting against the Australians in the seven-match one-day series? Sadly, the Challenger, once a great tournament, has now become quite meaningless. The IPL and the T20 Champions League are now the “in thing” and the majority of the players want to be a part of these tournaments. You can ask Dhoni and Harbhajan, who were in Nagpur when all the action was taking place in Bengaluru.
