Pakistan has been dumped yet again from the Champions League Cricket to be held later this year at three venues in India while the Pakistan Cricket Board is mum on the issue. This time round the CLT20 Governing Council has introduced a qualifying round in the league and has included four local teams along with Sri Lanka and New Zealand which do not have a strong T20 cricket structure as compare to Pakistan. The PCB has not even protest against the exclusion of the Pakistan team from the League. The exclusion of the Pakistani team also came at a time when the thaw between the two countries had eased out with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani’s visit to India during the Cricket World Cup 2011.
In the previous three editions the ties between the governments and cricket boards of Pakistan and India had become frostier, so Pakistani players had not participated in the IPL and not been invited to the Champions League. Last year the PCB decided to boycott that year’s edition but not a single PCB official clarified its position over this latest exclusion. An official of the organising committee has made Pakistan’s participation doubtful. The possibility of a Pakistan domestic side participating in the Champions League Twenty20 this year – though bleak – has not been entirely written off yet, either by the league or the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Pakistan did not have a representative in the inaugural tournament last year, the only Test-playing nation other than Bangladesh to not have a representative in the 12-team league. Sialkot Stallions – then Pakistan’s domestic Twenty20 champions – had been invited to participate in the very first Champions League, but that was postponed because of the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008.
The CLT20 Governing Council confirmed the format and dates for the 2011 tournament to be played in India on Monday, with more teams than ever before having a chance to win domestic T20’s biggest prize. Discussion on a Pakistan representative was expected to take place in the last meeting of the league’s governing council between officials from the Indian board, Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa but a senior league official said the number of teams in this year’s tournament – to be held in September – has not been finalised last year but now they also did not consider and kept everything in doubt.
The 10-team CLT20 will follow the same format as 2010 and will be held in Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata from September 23 to October 9. Before the tournament kicks off, a six-team event will be played in Hyderabad from September 19 to 21 to decide the final three teams that qualify for the main event. As many as six sides in the qualifier and another seven already confirmed as participants in the tournament, a record 13 teams will have a chance to claim the most prestigious prize in the domestic cricket.
No Pakistani team in Cricket Champions League
