sam_ahm wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 3:24 pm
Fair points here and a good thread by Kriterion.
I have a feeling that 2024 and beyond will give us a glimpse of which Franchise leagues survive and which won't... I'm sure not every league will survive and this will be interesting to see... Some leagues that I think will struggle are - ILT20 - UAE, Global T20 - Canada, Major League Cricket - USA, Lanka Premier league - SL, CPL - WI and Abu Dhabi T10.
Leagues that will do well are IPL, BBL, SAT20 while the likes of PSL, BPL, Hundred, Super Smash - NZ may not do exceptionally well but will do good enough to survive.
Just my personal opinion though.
I don't see why those leagues would necessarily struggle. As far as I'm aware they don't conflict with the IPL do they?
As far as I can tell the league schedules are basically thus:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/commen ... r_in_2023/
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/icc- ... bl-1324926
So starting the franchise (or otherwise domestic T20) year off in December and ending it in October we have:
1. December - BBL (Aus), Super Smash (NZ), Abu Dhabi T10 (UAE) and formerly LPL (Sri Lanka) which moved to July/August
2. January - BBL (Aus), Super Smash (NZ) BPL (Bangladesh), SAT20 (S.Afr), ILT20 (UAE), Nepal T20 (Nepal)
3. February - BPL (Bangladesh), PSL (Pakistan)
4. March - PSL (Pakistan), IPL (India), Stanbic T20 (Zim)
5. April - IPL (India), Stanbic T20 (Zim)
6. May - IPL (India), T20 Blast possible month (England)
7. June - IPL (India), T20 Blast (England), T20 Inter-Prov (Ireland)
8. July - T20 Blast (England), The Hundred (England), LPL (Sri Lanka), T20 Inter-Prov (Ireland), MLC (USA), Global T20 (Canada)
9. August - T20 Blast (England), The Hundred (England), LPL (Sri Lanka) possible month, Global T20 (Canada)
10. September - T20 Blast (England) possible month, CPL (WI)
11. October - here be dragons
12. November - here be
more dragons
Super Smash and to an even greater extent the Stanbic T20 are much more like the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in India or the National T20 Cup in Pakistan in that they are primarily aimed at and for almost purely domestic purposes with few if any overseas players. Super Smash does allow for as many overseas players as teams want (but I think only 2 are allowed per match in the playing XI) but due to the intense competition from BBL, AD T10, BPL, SAT20 and ILT20 (the Nepal T20 being around the same time can't help since players who don't get into one of the bigger leagues can ply their trade in Nepal (cheaper cost of living) and hope to be seen or noticed for the IPL later or for one of the bigger leagues in the region (PSL, BBL, LPL, ILT20)).
ILT20, CPL, LPL and ADT10 have basically consistently been held since their inception (whereas Global T20 has had a rough time recovering from 2020 and began again in 2023) and for the most part don't compete with other leagues in terms of scheduling (LPL in July when the only competition is really England along with to a lesser extent the USA, Canada and Ireland; the CPL in September where again the only competition might just be England as well as the Asia Cup and some bilateral series (as CPL CEO Pete Russell noted from a long time ago:
https://www.guardian.co.tt/sports/chief ... c143e5d9b0; he's also consistently been quite supportive of other non-competing leagues like MCL and GT20 and even recently mooted the idea that in the future the CPL, MLC and GT20 could partner to form a super league:
https://www.pressreader.com/jamaica/dai ... 7432750643)).
ILT20 does compete with other leagues in January but where it differentiates itself from the other leagues is in having massively relaxed restrictions on overseas players in the playing XI. ILT20 allows 9 out the 11 to be overseas players and only stipulates that 1 player must be a UAE player and 1 player must be from an associate nation (which the UAE is, so in essence 1-2 players must be UAE players). This is almost the reverse of what happens elsewhere as usually anywhere between 2 and 5 players can be overseas players depending on the league. ILT20 differentiates itself by simply allowing overseas players maximum possibility to actually play.