In all, the tournament was of high standard and better compared to IPL. In IPL at least 2 teams appear below par every time. Punjab of course takes first place, while Kolkatta is not even close there. Even champions league showed those shades with Central districts and Wayamba succumbing to pressure in every game. It was amazing to see RedBacks, Lions and Warriors winning games against all teams. All matches were really good with medium and slow pace bowlers controlling games. Mumbai lacked winning attitude, Central Districts has no key players while Wayamba couldn't get their attitude right. Except for Ravi Shastri, Gavaskar and sometime Doul, the commentary was also good. T20 did indeed change the dimension of the game. Watching Champions league T20 on a 36inch HD TV gave me that franchisee sport feel, that we get with NFL & Euro soccer leagues. It was more like a party out there at BullRing except for the serious cricket in the middle.
I felt that RedBacks gaveup too easily in the semifinal but worked too hard to deserve a chance in the final. But Bangalore was up and down and couldn't repeat their magic against Chennai. Lions were decent but not good enough in the crunch games. Victorians were good to comeback strong but were a tad bit late. They had to hope for the third team's loss to enter semis.
To be continued..........................
