International Cricket Council in talks to launch new club world championship

Talks between the leading national boards such as the ECB and Cricket Australia over creating a best-v-best international Twenty20 franchise competition have been taking place for some time, but the International Cricket Council is understood to be ready to take charge of launching a new world club championship.

Provisional discussions are believed to have already taken place over holding the inaugural competition in India as soon as September 2027.

While the details have yet to be finalised, it is envisaged there would be two teams from the premier short-form tournaments in England, Australia and South Africa – the Hundred, Big Bash, and SA20 – and more from the Indian Premier League (IPL).

A pre-qualifying tournament may also be held to give opportunities to teams from smaller markets such as the Caribbean, United States, New Zealand and Sri Lanka to earn their place in a model the ICC already uses for the T20 World Cup. While the winners of the Pakistan Super League would undoubtedly merit inclusion on sporting grounds, the likelihood of India staging the first competition makes that problematic.

The ICC’s involvement would be historic, as for the past 116 years it has restricted itself to governing international cricket and has never had any involvement in competitions involving domestic sides or franchises.

It also appears significant, as with Sanjog Gupta having been appointed ICC chief executive this month to join chair Jay Shah in an all-Indian leadership team, it indicates that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is also behind the project.

“For any cross-border tournament to go ahead the BCCI has to back it,” a source with knowledge of the discussions told The Observer. “It will come off if India back it.”  The ICC’s desire to run the competition also stems from self-interest, as in a sport increasingly dominated by franchise cricket over which it has no jurisdiction, it has struggled for relevance. It may also be significant that the ICC’s $3 billion Indian TV deal with Disney Star for men’s and women’s World Cups and the Champions Trophy expires in 2027.

Amid widespread expectations that the rights value will drop over the next four-year cycle, having a new tournament to add to the bundle would help the ICC offset the decline. Gupta joined the ICC from his previous role as head of sport and live experiences at JioStar, the result of a merger between Disney Star and Reliance Industries’ Viacom18, so knows more than most about the state of the broadcast market. Indian broadcasters would certainly be interested in another global competition, as would ICC’s main commercial partner, Saudi Arabia energy company Aramco.

A previous attempt to set up an international franchise tournament – the Champions League T20 – collapsed after six editions in 2014. Although IPL sides won five of the six titles after New South Wales lifted the inaugural trophy, the owners never appeared fully behind the competition, with one source who was involved at the time saying many of them viewed it as a threat to the IPL rather than seeing it as a chance to promote the sport.

Most of the IPL owners have a more global outlook today, however, with many of them having bought franchises in other countries including South Africa’s SA20, Major League Cricket in the United States and ILT20 in the United Arab Emirates. The owners of Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Lucknow Super Giants and Sunrisers Hyderabad are also in the process of buying into four Hundred franchises.

The concentration of ownership presents additional challenges that are unique to cricket, however. Mumbai Indians, for example, own franchises in the IPL, Major League Cricket, SA20, ILT20 and will soon own 49 per cent of Oval Invincibles, with many of their players rotating among them, raising issues over potential conflicts of interest if several of them qualify. “In a world of franchises, who plays for whom?” one source asked.

The congested calendar is another problem which is far from unique, with September identified as the best time for a short, two-week tournament given the limited franchise and international cricket played during that month. While England often stages white-ball series in September there is little cricket played elsewhere.

Importantly, India’s home series do not usually start until October at the earliest, so they would be available to host. Long-mooted plans to launch an IPL2 in September have not taken off, and staging a World Club Championship could provide an alternative, particularly as India appear to have lost out to England in the contest to stage the final of World Test Championship. While the contract is not yet signed, the ECB is expected to be awarded a long-term deal to host the WTC final in 2027, 2029 and 2031 despite rival interest from Ahmedabad.

Unlike in football and rugby, there is also unlikely to be much opposition from the players’ unions. Although the global union, the World Cricketers’ Association, are keen to safeguard the pre-eminence of Test cricket, it will also embrace new tournaments that bring significant rewards to its members.

The ICC declined to comment when approached by The Observer.

Photograph by Philip Brown/Getty Images