Champions League venues announced

The inaugural Champions League Twenty20 will be played in three venues, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, which will host the cricket extravaganza to be held from December 3-10, 2008, it was announced on Thursday.

At a media event in Mumbai, Lalit Modi, Chairman, Champions League Twenty20, announced the venues and unveiled the logo of the tournament.

“In the Champions League Twenty20, I believe we have a concept that will inspire and motivate the future generations of club, state and county cricketers, while accelerating the development of the game globally,” Modi said at the event.

“I am confident that this will be a true global event the scale of which the cricketing world has not seen outside of the World Cups,” he added.

Eight teams, including the reigning winners and runners-up from the domestic Twenty20 competitions in India (Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings), Australia (Western Australia Warriors and Victoria Bushrangers) and South Africa (Titans and Dolphins), plus the reigning Twenty20 champions from Pakistan (the tournament is being held from Oct. 4, 2008) and England Twenty20 Cup winners (Middlesex) will contest a US$6 million team prize pool in the 2008 Champions Twenty20 League.