For whose benefit is Champions League cricket?

With cash-rich Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers all but knocked out of the Indian Champions League...

With cash-rich Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers all but knocked out of the Indian Champions League by unknown Victoria Bushrangers, Trinidad and Tobago and Somerset Sabres, I am left wondering early this morning if the Champions League Twenty20 will ultimately help our desi Indian cricketers in the manner intended.

Or will this successor to the path-breaking and eminently brilliantly-conceived, excellently-organised and hugely profitable Indian Premier League (IPL), now proving to be a colossal attraction in our country at this festival time, merely help swell the coffers not only of IPL and foreign teams and Boards, but also provide invaluable international recognition to unknown foreign teams and their nondescript players at our cost?

Anil Kumble-led Royal Challengers Bangalore lost to Australia's Victoria Bushrangers by seven wickets in the Champions League match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium yesterday. PIC/SURESH KK

To be fair, there have been some stellar performances by our established, as well as promising, Indian players in this, the inaugural year of the CL Twenty20.

And, the thrilling slam-bang batting and innovative bowling performances of some foreign players have provided exhilarating enjoyment to our massive audiences at the venues and on television, even if one discounts some of the reports of tickets being distributed free of charge at, at least, one venue.

But with the Indian team fairly well-settled in its composition, one wonders if the present tournament will not help unknown foreign players, more than our own, attain stardom for their own countries at our cost?

This stark thought struck me while watching the well- deserved victories of Trinidad and Tobago and Victoria Bushrangers, essentially state teams, over IPL franchise teams, Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers, both cherry-picked at astronomic cost from the cream of the crop in the cricketing world.

It would be wrong to deny any indigenous or foreign professional player the right to ride on the crest of cricket, as part of dynamic market forces, and accept a lucrative offer of the kind that can now come only from India.

But, the question that begs answering is: Shouldn't largesse start at home?

More profitable ciphers in the bottomline of the BCCI and, its progeny, the IPL, will certainly make for even more impressive reading.

But, won't this possibly also be at the cost of our own homegrown talent which, unfortunately, is often at the mercy of our notoriously eccentric selection process?

The humbling of victory-obsessed Vijay Mallya's Bangalore outfit last night by Victoria Bushrangers, a state team with comparably limited financial resources (like any other Australian state team, for that matter) underscored, for me, the depth in the cricketing set-up of the world champion nation.

Fresh doubts
It also raised fresh doubts in my mind about our Champions League format.

It made me wonder if the well-intentioned League, successor to the IPL, the pride and joy and thinly disguised envy of the cricketing world is not missing the wood for the trees.

Simply put: Does it not make sense, in a proven situation where 20-over cricket is the undisputed flavour of the month the world over, for IPL and BCCI to devise a system for the now successful Champions League, that will be more beneficial to the untapped, inexhaustible talent in our own country while involving foreign players for their appeal?

The problem assumes even greater urgency given the alarming declining attendances at the Ranji Trophy and other domestic tournaments in our country.

And, equally importantly, for us to unearth fresh talent following our dismal performances in the recent Twenty20 and Champions Cup tournaments.