Champions League Twenty20 postponed

Mumbai:

The inaugural edition of the Champions League Twenty20 scheduled to be played in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai from December 3 to 10, has been postponed following Wednesday night's terror attacks in Mumbai. However, organisers are confident that it can be rescheduled for early next year.

The decision was taken on Thursday by the Governing Council of the Champions League 2020 after consultations among the three founding board members of the tournament - Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa.

Lalit Modi, Chairman of the Champions League 20-20, said, "We held consultations among all the stakeholders including the founding members, the participating teams and members of the Governing Council after the unfortunate terrorist attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday night. It was agreed that in the best interests of all concerned, the inaugural edition of the Champions League T20 should be postponed."

Modi added, "We very strongly condemn this dastardly and heinous criminal act of a few which has resulted in the loss of precious lives and injury to hundreds. We offer our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and we are with them in their hour of grief."

However, Modi is confident the tournament will go ahead sometime in 2009. "We are confident we can hold the tournament early next year," he said. "India will remain the venue, as there was never a problem with hosting it here. All the teams agreed that they wanted to come for the tournament. But we had a problem with finding a third venue after Mumbai. There was no way we could have shifted the venue to Bangalore or Chennai, considering the state of the wickets and the grounds would not have accommodated all the matches."