A look back on England's love-hate relationship with the Champions League T20
The Champions League Twenty20 (CL T20) is an annual T20 competition which was launched in 2008 with the first edition being held a year later in 2009. The league is co-owned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket Australia (CA) and Cricket South Africa (CSA).
The basic premise of the tournament when it was launched was that the best domestic T20 teams from the 8 major cricketing nations would be taking part, with the winner of the two-week event having the chance of laying claim to being the best domestic T20 team in the world.
But the scheduling of the tournament has been such that it has, by and large, curtailed the participation of teams from England. The CLT20 generally begins in mid-September, thereby clashing with the end of the English county season. This has led to England teams being able to take part in only 3 of the 6 editions so far – 2009, 2011 and 2012 - and they haven’t able to do much to enhance their reputation in those editions.
This comes as no surprise when you consider the fact that they have had to fly to India for the tournament pretty much as soon as their gruelling county season ends on each occasion, leaving them very little time to prepare for the competition as opposed to teams from other countries.
The CLT20 organizers, to be fair, have tried their best at scheduling the tournament in October in order to accommodate English teams. But this hasn’t been possible, especially in the last two years, due to the cramped international schedule, resulting in England being completely absent from the tournament over the last two editions.
Here is a brief overview of how teams from England have fared in the CLT20:
2009
Sussex and Somerset were the two teams representing England in the first ever edition of the CLT20 in 2009. Sussex had won the domestic Twenty20 Cup after beating Somerset in the final just a few weeks prior to the CLT20, courtesy of which the two domestic finalists had sealed their place in the tournament.
Sussex, though, failed to even get out of the group stages of the tournament. They suffered a heavy defeat against New South Wales, eventual winners, in their first game and followed it up with a defeat in the Super Over against the Eagles, thereby getting knocked out without winning even a single game.
Somerset, on the other hand, fared much better as they beat Deccan Charges, who were coming into the tournament as IPL champions, to get past the group stages before exiting the tournament.
2011
The format of the 2011 CLT20 had been tweaked significantly from the earlier editions of the competition as qualifiers were introduced for the first time. Leicestershire and Somerset, the two teams from England, only got a place in the qualifiers in this new format and had to earn the right to participate in the tournament proper.
Leicestershire, who had pulled off a massive upset by beating Somerset in the domestic final, were found wanting in Indian conditions and ended up returning home without a single victory on the board.
Somerset, though, once again displayed their class as a T20 team on the international stage. They got the better of both Kolkata Knight Riders and Auckland Aces to cruise past the qualifying stage and enter the main competition. Vying for one of two semi-final spots up for grabs alongside Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kolkata Knight Riders, Warriors and South Australia in Group B, Somerset finished top of the group to qualify for the semi-finals.
Their fairy-tale run unfortunately came to an end, however, when they came up against the might of Mumbai Indians, who won the semi-final by 10 runs and went on to then win the final.
2012
The jinx of winning England’s domestic T20 final continued during the CLT20 in South Africa in 2012. Hampshire, who won the Friends Life T20 earlier that year, would have come into the CLT20 with a lot of confidence without doubt. But it wasn’t enough to yield them success as they bowed out of the tournament during the qualifying stage itself, courtesy of comprehensive defeats to Auckland and Sialkot Stallions.
Yorkshire, meanwhile, did a respectable job of carrying the flag for England by beating Sri Lanka’s Uva Next and the much-fancied Trinidad & Tobago to progress to the next stage. But they found themselves well out of their depth come the main tournament and were taught a harsh lesson. They lost 3 out of their 4 games, with only rain saving them from suffering a 4th consecutive defeat against Mumbai Indians.