In the second Champions League Twenty20 semi final, Trinidad and Tobago’s Dwayne Bravo took 0-46 off three well-spanked overs against Cape Cobras. No matter. He promptly hit 58 off 34 balls to help T&T waltz home. The Dwayne Bravo off-side thock made a couple of appearances.

In many ways this was classic Dwayne Bravo. He approaches everything with such gusto that humiliations are shrugged off before they’ve had a chance to attach themselves to him.

Put Dwayne Bravo in a pair of clown trousers filled with custard and enter him in a 100m race and he’d win. He wouldn’t even notice.

Tags: Champions League Twenty20, Dwayne Bravo by King Cricket
3 Comments »

Not one IPL team has made it to the semi-finals of the Champions League Twenty20. Somewhere a marketing twat mournfully draws a descending line on a profit forecast.

Clearly having only three out of the eight IPL teams qualify for the Champions League leaves the cricketainment outfits woefully underrepresented. Next year, only the worst IPL side will fail to qualify by rights. It will have to play a qualifier against the winners of Zimbabwe’s domestic Twenty20 league.

Playing in home conditions on their home grounds didn’t help either. Home sides get a 20 run head start? Away sides have to spend the night before each match in a room full of weasels? Needless corrective footwear for opposition bowlers?

Tags: Champions League Twenty20, IPL by King Cricket
7 Comments »

If you want to get to know one of the IPL teams better, there’s only one thing to do: you watch the video of their theme tune.

Royal Challengers Bangalore have a good one. Rahul Dravid looks moody for about 0.1 of a second somewhere in the middle and Kevin Pietersen plays a pull shot right at the end, but otherwise it’s just this:

And this:

Royal Challengers Bangalore are all about skirts which serve no discernable purpose.

Tags: Champions League Twenty20, IPL by King Cricket
8 Comments »

In the name of having at least half a clue what’s going on, we thought we’d investigate the format of the Champions League Twenty20.

They’re currently playing the group stages. There are three teams in each group. They all play each other and then the top two go through to the next stage.

That’s rubbish. Two out of three is too many. It’s almost as if the tournament’s had a warm-up tagged onto the start of it which is really only there to get rid of Otago, Wayamba, Sussex and Somerset.

Somerset have made a right balls-up by winning a match.

Tags: Champions League Twenty20 by King Cricket
6 Comments »

To further clarify our feelings about the Twenty20 Champions League, it’ll be interesting precisely as long as there’s a chance that the budget sides might make a joke out of the rampant capitalism on which the whole thing is built.

Basically, if Somerset beat Deccan Chargers, it’ll be pretty funny and in the unlikely event that Somerset, Otago and Wayamba outperform all the IPL sides, it’ll nicely undercut the pompous bluster that the whole thing relies on. However, the more years the Twenty20 Champions League lasts, the less likely it is that this kind of thing will happen.

Basically, we hate anything where the people behind it have identified a ‘target audience’. Our enjoyment revolves around them being a little bit disappointed. They won’t mind the odd upset, but anything more than that will say that the IPL teams are something other than 100% awesome and that won’t go down well with those marketing that overhyped little tournament.

Tags: Champions League Twenty20 by King Cricket
7 Comments »

When we were younger and interested in both cricket and football, we thought that cricket could learn from club football. Now, having pretty much completely forsaken football due to it having become an earth-rattling shodfest that’s part soap opera and part corporate dick-swinging contest, we’re a bit worried that cricket is showing signs of following the same path.

On the face of it, the Twenty20 Champions’ League could be a lot of fun. There are good players and it’s potentially a punchy little tournament with a handful of underdogs in the mix. However, if the rich, powerful sides start manipulating the cricket world to ensure their continued success in such tournaments, we’re not so far away from non-news articles about Mahendra Dhoni maybe thinking about switching clubs. And that’s where we exit.

Tags: Champions League Twenty20 by King Cricket
13 Comments »