While the England cricketers returned to India, the 20-20 Champions League organizers could not help but pospone the tournament to October of next year.

India's tour of Pakistan may or may not happen, but then any tour to Pakistan is tentative these days, hence the 20-20 Champions League stands to be the most affected tournament due to the recent Mumbai happenings.

Who though has been affected the most?

The teams definitely.

Victoria Bushrangers and Western Australia Warriors from Australia, Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Superkings from India, Sialkot Stallions from Pakistan, Middlesex Crusaders from England, and Titans and Dolphins from South Africa - all of them face losses.

Each participating country will hold a domestic 20-20 tournament before October 2009, which means that the participants of te inaugral 20-20 Champions League will be very different from what the line up was for this December's tournament.

Fair?

Probably not.

The Stallions and the Bushrangers have won their respective domestic 20-20 tournaments thrice in as many years, and now they are left to do it again if they are to make it to the Champions League.

Surely the organizers need to come up with a solution to avoid this situation.

How about having last season's winners as well as this season's winners participate in the Champions League?

Noone can deny that the Rajasthan Royals deserve to take part in the Champions League after the IPL campaign they had last season.

What if Shane Warne's team don't reach the finals in the next edition of the IPL?

The way things stand as of now, it would mean they will not be playing in the Champions League.

Forget about the financial losses, lets think about fairness for once.

If the winners of the 2 seasons' tournaments are the same then the runners up can come into contention, if not then the 2 champions need to be allowed to play in my view.

That would also mean that the number of teams be increased to 10 from 8 to allow 2 teams each from England and Pakistan.

If there was enough time I would have proposed 4-way 20-20 competitions between the 4 domestic teams (winners and runners up of 2007-08 and 2008-09) to decide the 2 participants of the Champions League, but the lack of time in light of the international schedule will not allow that.

Hence the winners from both the tournaments.

Before you continue, I suggest you first read the crash course below.

Warriors Get a Name

The first sponsorship deal for a team for the Champions League was sealed recently when it was announced that the Western Australia team, the Warriors, would be sponsored by the Rambal family.

The Rambal family, a business family group in Western Australia, have been major sponsors of the WACA for over a year now and have bagged the naming-rights for the Warriors team.

As a result the Warriors side taking the field in the Champions League will be called the Rambal Warriors.

The Logo in the post below is now replaced with this one.

The Stallions lose Players

Despite winning the domestic 20-20 competition this season for the third time in a row, the Stallions have been massively weakened due to a number of their key players joining the 'rebel' ICL.

Imran Nazir, who captained the Stallions to their previous 2 titles, is their biggest loss, while Naved Ul Hasan, Hafiz Khalid, Shehzad Malik, and Mohammad Asif are other key players missing from their line up due to the ICL and other reasons.

Loyalty Program

Micheal Hussey, Albie Morkel, and Morne Morkel will have to undergo some sort of loyalty programming if they are not allowed to play for their preferred teams in the Champions League.

Hussey would rather play for the Warriors while the Morkel brothers would prefer to play for the Titans, however certain contractual obligations may force them to play for their IPL teams.

The respective coaches, Tom Moody and Richard Pybus were hopeful that the players would be allowed to play for their states.

Hussey's inclusion in the Warriors team would give them a batting order comprising of Marsh, Ronchi, Pomersbach, Hussey, North, and Voges - Thats some line up!

The Rangers or the Royalty?

Shane Warne led the Rajasthan Royals to a dream win in the inaugral IPL earlier this year. He will be captaining them in the Champions League as well.

Warne could come up against his former team, Victoria, whom he captained in the Australian domestic season years ago.

Victoria is Warne's home team and he has long been associated with them. How would he feel playing against them?

Would be a great watch!

Stay tuned for more Champions League updated leading up to the tournament.

When England and Australia introduced cricket to the world over a century ago, little did they know that one day their regional teams will be vying to play in a competition being held in India, which over a century ago was being ruled by the British.

Who would have believed back then that one day Middlesex will be taking on Victoria in Mumbai.

That is exactly what will be happening on the inaugral day of the Champions League.

The one cricket spectacle that can catch the imagination of billions around the world was launched in Delhi last week.

The first ever Champions League will take place between December 3rd and 10th in India.

Lalit Modi and company officially launched the competition this Thursday where the draws for the groups were held and various awards were given out to top 20-20 performers of the season.

Even though the teams are not actually cricket clubs, the involvement of regional / state teams from domestic competitions of test playing nations in a tournament, is the first baby step towards promoting club cricket around the world.

Football, arguably the most popular sport in the world, has relied on the 'club culture' for over a century and there's no reason why cricket cannot replicate the formula for taking the sport to a wider global audience.

The number of doors that this can open for cricket are unimaginable in my view.

Here's a look at what the Champions League will throw our way.

The Groups & The Teams

Group A:
Victoria Bushrangers
Middlesex Crusaders
Pretoria Titans
Chennai Super Kings

Group B:
Rajasthan Royals
Sialkot Stallions
Natal Dolphins
Western Warriors

Bushrangers, Crusaders, Titans, Super Kings, Royals, Stallions, Dolphins, Warriors - ever seen such a diverse mix of participants in any sort of competition?

Reminds me of the WWE!

You've got royalty, you've got men going for battle, you've got animals, you've got fish, and you've got gardeners!

And you've got them from Australia, South Africa, England, India, and Pakistan.

Lalit Modi has managed to bring them all together in India.

One can easily imagine a similar competition played out over a longer period, maybe a decade or two down the line involving teams from New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, China, Hong Kong, USA, Canada, Brazil, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Netherlands, Ireland, and many others.

Globalization is an understatement.

The Matches

The opening match of the Champions League will be played in Mumbai between Victoria Bushrangers, the winners of the KFC 20-20 competition in Australia, taking on the Middlesex Crusaders, the winners of England's 20-20 competition.

The top 2 teams from each group will qualify for the semi finals. The final of the tournament will take place in Chennai a week after the opening match.

The Captains

Bushrangers and the Warriors, the Australian teams, are captained by Cameron White and Marcus North respectively.

Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan captain, will be leading the Sialkot Stallions, while MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, will be leading the Chennai Super Kings.

Retired former Victorian, Shane Warne, will be leading the IPL champions Rajasthan Royals, and Middlesex will be captained by Shaun Udal.

The South African teams, Titans and Dolphins, will be led by Pierre Joubert and Ahmed Amla (Hashim's brother) respectively.

Where else will you find a french play cricket amongst the elite?

The Awards

Shaun Marsh, who topped the averaged in both the IPL (Kings XI) as well as the KFC 20-20 Cup (Bushrangers), won the best average for a batsman award.

Sohail Tanvir picked up the award for best bowling figures for his 6-14 for the Royals against the Super Kings, which are also the best bowling figures in all official 20-20 cricket, excluding the ICL.

Charles Langeveldt won the best strike rate for a bowler award for picking a wicket every 9 deliveries for the Cape Cobras, while Graeme Napier of Essex won the best stike rate for a batsman award with a SR of 195.2!

Brendon McCullum (Knight Riders) won the award for the highest score of 158 that he hit in the opening math if the IPL, and Yusuf Abdullah from the Natal Dolphins won the award for the best economy rate of 4.32.

A special award was given to Shoaib Malik for leading the Sialkot Stallions to 3 consecutive 20-20 titles while remaining unbeaten in 16 successive 20-20 matches.

Thats the longest winning streak in 20-20 cricket for any team. The Australia of 20-20 cricket?

Now that you have been familiarized with the Champions league, I can talk about the more interesting stuff related to the tournament.