Champions League T20 2014 to be held in India

The sixth edition of the Champions League Twenty 20 will be played in India. The decision has put an end to the United Arab Emirates' hopes of hosting the event after successfully staging the opening leg of the Indian Premier League's 2014 season.

According to BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel, the decision was taken by the CLT20 governing council, which met in Melbourne last week on the sidelines of the ICC annual conference. "The venues and the dates will soon be finalised but it will be played in India," Patel said in Mumbai.

It is understood that the tournament is likely to start on September 7. The venues will be finalised after considering the weather forecast. Last year, some CLT20 fixtures had to be rescheduled due to torrential rain at some venues.

Considering that the monsoon is usually active in much of India during September and the tremendous response the IPL received in the UAE, the BCCI, along with its CLT20 stakeholders Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa, was seriously considering the UAE as a potential venue.

Sunil Gavaskar, BCCI's interim president for IPL affairs, had supported staging the tournament in the UAE. "It is certainly a possibility because there are two aspects at the back of the BCCI's mind. The first is the weather in India at that stage, because it will be monsoon-ish still and the monsoon will be tapering off and you don't want to have matches washed out," Gavaskar had said last month. "And the fact that you know at that particular time there will be a lot of people wanting to come to Dubai."