Champions T20 League expanded from 8 to 12 teams

The inaugural Champions T20 league (that was put off in 2008 due to the terror attacks in Mumbai) will be held from October 8-23 in India, just after the Champions Trophy that's to be played in South Africa. Also, there have been a few changes made in the way the teams would be selected to play the league.

The number of teams to be participating has been increased from 8 to 12. 3 teams from India would be included and apart from the Deccan Chargers and the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils too will get a chance to play on account of topping the round-robin stage of the IPL. Amongst the other teams would be the finalists of the domestic T20 competitions of England, South Africa (Cape Cobras and Eagles) and Australia (Victoria and New South Wales). Also, winners of the domestic competitions of West Indies (Trinidad & Tobago), Sri Lanka (Wayamba) and New Zealand (Otago) will play in the tournament which carries prize money of US$ 6mn. A team representing Pakistan would not be available to compete as its government has put restrictions on travelling to India. England's T20 competition for this year will take place next week and hence the teams to compete in this inaugural Champions T20 league would be decided sometime in August.

There will be a total of 23 matches played with the number of teams getting divided into 4 groups of 3 teams each. They'll play each other on a round-robin basis and the top 2 teams from each group proceed to the next round and from there the best 4 teams will compete in the knockout stages. Tournament Chairman, Lalit Modi also stated that from next year, the 3rd Indian team to participate will be decided on the basis of a play-off between the 2 losing semi-finalists of the IPL. He also made a very significant gesture by saying that players from the unsanctioned ICL could also represent their domestic teams, provided they resign from the league before May 31. However, the 'cooling period' theory means that even if they do cancel their contracts before the deadline, they won't be able to participate in this year's competition.