2009 Champions League Twenty20

The 2009 Champions League Twenty20 was the first edition of the Champions League Twenty20, an international club cricket tournament. It was held in India between 8 October and 23 October 2009 and featured domestic teams from Australia, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies. The New South Wales Blues were the winners of the tournament, defeating Trinidad and Tobago in the final.

Format
The tournament had 23 matches, and is divided into three stages: the group; league; and knockout stages.

During group stage teams were divided into four groups, with each group having three teams. Each team played both of the other teams in their group once with the top two teams in each group advancing to the league stage, in which two new groups were created, each of four teams. Another round-robin tournament was played in each league, although teams that faced each other during the group stage did not play each other again, with the result from their first meeting carried forward. The top two teams from each league advanced to the knockout stage, which consisted of two semi-finals followed by a final.

The total prize money for the competition was US$6 million. In addition to the prize money, each team receives a participation fee of $500,000.

Qualification
This tournament featured 12 teams, an increase from the eight teams for the planned 2008 tournament. Teams were added from New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and the West Indies and the inclusion of a team from Pakistan was removed due to the decline in the relationship between the Indian and Pakistani cricket boards following from the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Lalit Modi, the chairman of the tournament, claimed the Pakistan government was unwilling to give Pakistan players clearance to travel to India, although representatives of the Pakistan Cricket Board claimed they were not contacted on the matter.

Players
There were a number of cases where players were a part of more than one of the teams which had qualified for the tournament. In these cases the player was allowed to only play for the team from the country he was eligible to represent in international cricket unless another team paid US$200,000 compensation. Only Dirk Nannes was named in more than one preliminary squad – those of Delhi Daredevils and his "home" team, the Victorian Bushrangers. Delhi paid Victoria US$200,000 to retain Nannes.

Venues
Three venues were used during the competition, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi and the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad. The semi-finals were played at Delhi and Hyderabad and the final at Hyderabad.

Reception
The tournament was generally not received favourably due to the lack of team recognition outside of the three Indian sides. Matches not involving these teams drew low television ratings and attendances whilst the three Indian teams performed poorly.

Group stage fixture

 * All times shown are in Indian Standard Time (UTC+05:30).

Most runs

 * Source: CricInfo

Most wickets

 * Source: CricInfo