'CL will travel to other countries'

Modi keen to spread the message

“That is a definite possibility.  The tournament will move from country to country in the years to come. After this year’s CL, the governing council will sit down and decide the next venue,” Modi told reporters.

“The immediate future is that we have South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as leading candidates and the objective would be to move within the participating countries. But we must make the competition more broadcast-friendly and show it to countries that have never seen cricket before. As a global league it is very important to get cricket play all around the world and give them the opportunity to play on different surfaces, in front of different fans and cultures,” he added.

Modi also did not rule out the possibility of increasing the number of teams in the competition. “Ah yes, that possibility is always there. We have 12 teams in this edition and the number will remain the same in the next edition as well. About increasing the number of teams, we will have to look into it on a year-to-year basis.”

The dynamic administrator exuded confidence that the Champions League will fortify domestic cricket around the world. “The Champions League has been developed to embrace club cricket all round the world. There have been club cricket Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the West Indies but they do not have a structured tournament for clubs. But countries like India, Australia and England have a good format and you can see the benefits with competition getting picked up and new players coming up,” he said.
“You'll see players who were not participating in domestic tournaments will now take part in it. Earlier, once players became international players they hardly played a few games for their clubs. But the rules of the Champions League are such 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. This can only raise the standards of club cricket around the world,” he added.

Modi also asserted the Twenty20 is the most suited format to spread cricket around the world. “This event will also see the CL being beamed live in European languages. The objective here is to reach out for people in places like Russia, Italy etc in their local languages and thereby increasing the reach of cricket, making it a global event and I think T20 is the format best suited for this.”