Post Lodha-verdict, BCCI scraps Champions League

A day after a Supreme Court appointed committee led by former chief justice R M Lodha prevented two franchises from participating in the Indian Premier League and imposed life bans on Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra, the BCCI has decided to scrap the Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20).

 

In a statement the BCCI on Wednesday said the governing council of the tournament has confirmed that the CLT20 competition will be discontinued with immediate effect.

The Governing Council of the CLT20, comprising representatives of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Cricket Australia (CA) made the decision unanimously.

 

As such, the 2015 CLT20 scheduled for September and October will not go ahead as planned.

BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur 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. This decision was made, after consultation with all our commercial partners and meeting the contractual obligations of all parties involved," he added.

The competition was a joint venture between the three cricket boards and had run for six years since its launch in 2009. It had pitted the top teams from each nation's domestic twenty20 competition against each other in a high-stakes tournament.