Champions League T20: What does it mean?

[Caesar]

Champions League T20: What does it mean?

Well, what an interesting couple of weeks. What did we see?

• Despite their large budgets, home advantage, and experience playing together, the star-studded IPL sides were an unmitigated failure
• Arguably the two best sides in the CL came from arguably the worst country in the World T20
• It appears that despite being around for a while, T20-specific tactics are still fairly primitive and underdeveloped compared to the other formats
• Win the toss, bat, and you're three quarters of the way towards winning the game

Those were the main things I got out of it. Now the tricky bit - what does it mean? I'm not too sure to be honest, but I have a couple of theories.

One thing I think the IPL sides highlighted is that you must, must, must have consistent depth throughout your side. Even if this means that you lack stars. Big names are great if they fire, but T20 is such a crapshoot that you can't rely on that happening all the time - or even, perhaps, most of the time. Exhibit A, Andrew Symonds.

Second, someone needs to develop some effective tactics to go about a runchase. Most teams looked a little lost - they go out blazing trying to get it down to a run a ball, lose a few wickets early and it's game over. What's the solution? I don't know. Someone needs to get onto it though.

Third, leading on from that, the captaincy of a T20 team is a very different beast from the other formats. There's so little margin for error, and your bowlers only have four overs each - you can hardly take time to build partnerships and put the bats under pressure. I've never really thought much of Katich as a captain, but he made some inspired choices during this tournament - he seemed to know just when to use Lee's overs, or throw on Hauritz as a changeup.

Aside from that, I'm not sure. Why were NSW and Victoria so phenomenally successful, while the Australia side is so awful? I honestly don't know. It's perhaps an argument for selecting a T20 specific side, but 90% of the Australian XI is the best players from those two teams. So what's the real answer? At the end of the day, is it all just a protracted game of roulette?

I think I'm as confused about T20 as I was before the tournament.

 

[hattrick]

Re: Champions League T20: What does it mean?

Champions League T20 is the way I think certain players will put them on the map almost like the IPL did in the beginning.I think for the first time in years that first class cricket has something on the horizon for all. (I still would like it to be representative ie. a side from Pakistan and Bangladesh would be nice)

The tournament has raised certain issues for me:
1. Proper wickets - The wicket in Delhi was way below standard and all forms of cricket needs proper wickets. I understand that the Feroz Kotla wicket was relaid for the 2011 world cup but it helps no one having a below par wicket.
2. "Experience playing together" for the IPL sides ?! think about it they have played maximum 30 matches together maximum. I think on the contrary that those sides rely heavily on their internationals to do the business. Unfortunately the skill level of the local players were below par in comparison to the Australian, South African and West Indian sides. I thought those sides had better balance and players having the knowledge of certain situations. Also I am sure that certain players got away with being unknowns ie . batsman having certain strengths..
3.The runchases I think is symptomatic of the problem of players trying to hit boundaries but forgetting about 1's and 2's. This was one thing that I noticed with the better sides in that they knew that when to consolidate partnerships before going unto the attack.
4. In terms of bowling tactics - I think this tournament has shown me that slower balls and changes of pace(ie. slower bouncers etc) are quite common these days. Bowling straight and in the corridor of uncertainty is what won matches. Also the reason why NSW was so succesfull is that they had 5 front line bowlers who were difficult to get away and not just 2 or 3 as in the South African, English and IPL sides.
5. I think that T&T were showing the work done in the Caribbean with the Stanford Regional Series. The dominated the tournament and had an all round good side. I think that them and NSW could quite easily beat international T20 sides.
6. The fact what made T&T and NSW different is that they made little or no mistakes. I am of the opinion that their fielding standards were the reason why they were the dominant sides (I can think of no drop catches by either side in comparison to multiple catches by the Cape Cobras )

The reality is that T20 cricket is a 120 events and it is the sides that can adapt to them the best that will be successful.