England Miss Out on Champions League: Does Lalit Modi Have Too Much Power?

Lalit Modi has decided to move the cricket Champions League to the middle of September, according to the Guardian , placing it slap-bang in the climax of the English domestic season. The announcement was made not to the ECB, but via his Twitter page.

This means that the only chance English teams will have of competing, and receiving their part of the lucrative prize money, will be to abandon the domestic season part-way through.

Obviously, this is disastrous for English cricket and, in doing this, Modi has effectively issued a statement that he does not believe that domestic English cricket is worth his time, effort or money.

But why has he moved the tournament?

It seems that the obvious reason is so that the Champions League doesn’t clash with the India-Australia one-day series. But the new dates now clash directly with the England-Pakistan one-dayers.

There are also rumours that Modi has made the decision so that if the English teams do compete, they will be seriously weakened without their England players and will stand a much lower chance of progressing.

Modi has called on the ECB to make “minor adjustments” to the domestic season in order to accommodate the new dates. This would effectively force them to admit that the T20 Champions League is more important than any other domestic tournament, giving even more power to Modi.

The Champions League was set up as a joint operation between the ECB, BCCI, CSA, and CA. However with Modi, Indian cricket’s powerbroker-in-chief, at the helm of operations, it is apparent he has a firm grip on all decision making. It also seems that he will act in the interests of Indian cricket, whether it is to the detriment of other nations or not.

Does he have too much power? Clearly. Is it likely to change any time soon? No, unless the governing bodies of the other major cricketing nations join together to enforce change.