Champions League T20 (CLT20) tournament discontinued

The Champions League T20 tournament has been discontinued with immediate effect because of the poor demand and user base. BCCI, on Wednesday confirmed that an agreement has been reached by the Governing Council of CLT20 to discontinue the tournament with immediate effect.

CLT20, which was a joint venture of BCCI, Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Cricket Australia (CA), could not find enough sponsors or fans to be continued any longer. The fan base was poor since the very beginning of this tournament in 2009 and now, the hosts are even struggling to find sponsors. The decision was taken unanimously by all three host associations.

Anurag Thakur, Secretary of the BCCI said, “This has been a difficult decision as the Champions League T20 provided added context to a number of domestic Twenty 20 competitions around the world such as the IPL in India, Big Bash League in Australia and South Africa’s Ram Slam T20. "

After this decision, the upcoming edition of CLT20, scheduled in September and October, will be discarded.

CLT20 was not reportedly drawing enough attraction of audience from any country other than India and this was not good for the business. BCCI, though gave a hint of organizing a 'mini-IPL' to be played in the UAE to replace the discontinued CLT20.

Modi's Letter to ICC about ‘corrupt’ players

Ex-Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi reportedly sent a confidential letter to the International Cricket Council (ICC) revealing the names of some top international cricketers who were involved in corruption in the IPL T20 tournament.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Sunday confirmed receiving the letter from Modi. The letter ts dated June 2013 in which Modi has claimed that certain players received illegal payments equal to the amount of Rs 20 crores each from an Indian real estate businessperson. ICC CEO David Richardson has received the names of the so called alleged players and the bookie and has promised that ICC will look after into the matter.

“The players are in close contact with real estate tycoon (name withheld). He is also a big punter and also book maker. I had banned him from bidding for any IPL teams… Reliable sources have informed me that he has paid in cash and kind (flats) to the above three in tune of 20 cr each,” Modi said in the letter.

“The ICC confirms that Mr Modi’s confidential e-mail, which was received in June 2013, and which has recently been published on Twitter, was provided to the ACSU at the time. The ACSU handled that information in accordance with its standard operating procedures, which included sharing it with the BCCI’s anti-corruption unit,” the ICC statement read.

The letter is almost two years old, but has been revealed to public only now. ICC has assured the BCCI that it would carry out investigations since the players involved in the case are all internationals.

The news first came out from Twitter when one of the social-media website users with the handle @shyamswami158 posted an image of the letter in a tweet sent to Modi, asking,"Whadya hav to say about this @LalitKModi ? Wat was @ICC response ..... This is shocking!!!!" Modi's response to the tweet from @shyamswami158 was: "Ask @Icc @Bcci @Ipl why ask me. This is highly confidential. You should not be tweeting this". Later, ICC confirmed about the letter.