Jason Gillespie urges to revive CLT20

Former Australian pacer Jason Gillespie calls for bringing back Champions League T20 which was discontinued after 6 seasons, since its inception in 2009. He feels that it would be a fantastic idea to revive it.

“It doesn’t seem to be on the agenda at the moment, yet I think it would be a fantastic idea to revive it,” Gillespie wrote in Evening Standard.

“At Yorkshire, we were involved in the 2012 tournament, after finishing runners-up in the domestic T20 competition earlier that year, and it was one of the best experiences of my career,” says the current coach of Yorkshire.

Gillespie believes that there is no need for a bilateral T20I series, where there is a very little number of T20Is and that could be the way to promote and give it the status and profile it deserves.

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“If you think about it, there is not a great deal of T20 played internationally. There are World Twenty20s but they are at least two years apart. While there may be T20 matches in bilateral series, there are not usually too many of them — and let’s face it, they’re a money-grab. Perhaps you don’t even need to have T20 matches between countries outside the World T20. Perhaps that would be the way to promote the Champions League and give it the status and profile it deserves,” he explained.

The CLT20 was called-off in 2014 since as it was not attracting many viewers. But Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has also backed Gillespie in this regard. “We believe there is genuine value in the concept of bringing clubs from different domestic T20 teams together for a world championship play-off,” Sutherland told cricket.com.au.

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“There were a number of very positive and successful aspects to the Champions League T20 event, but in the end, it did not attract the fan support in attendance or viewership to maintain viability,” he concluded.