Questions galore on the Champions League

Will players ditch their counties in favour of the big bucks of cricket's Champions League

25-Feb-2013

Will players ditch their counties in favour of the big bucks of cricket's Champions League? Jonathan Agnew in BBC Sport says plenty such questions need answering in cricket's latest mega event.

What about England's one-day cricketers who are unavailable for almost all of the domestic Twenty20 which starts on Wednesday? They will probably be free for the Champions League and I suspect will be keen to get their hands on the prize money.Will Peter Moores release them and, if so, what effect will that have on team spirit within their county team?

In the Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry wonders whether county supporters will buy into the aspirations of their team and turn out in large numbers, now with $5 million up for grabs for the world Twenty20 champions.

The sum of prize-money for the Champions League far exceeds the $2million touted when the idea was first proposed. The lid of Pandora's Box has been opened; the expectations of domestic cricketers have been raised as never before; attitudes will change as the object of the exercise is now major money. It may prove to be something of an understatement when Clarke said: "The ECB Twenty20 Cup will be even more fiercely contested this season in the knowledge that the two teams who reach the final will qualify for the Champions League and the chance to win $5 million."

Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo