Champions League offers huge incentives to excel

IT DID not take long for the Titans to be disabused of the notion that they are anything more than bit players in the Champions League Twenty20 drama that will unfold in India over the next two weeks.

Confirmation came loud and clear after 16.2 overs of the Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK’s) innings in their first-round match against the Titans in Ranchi at the weekend — when Dwayne Bravo failed to deal with a slower bouncer from Rowan Richards and was caught behind.

“It was quite funny when we got Bravo out,” AB de Villiers said after the match.

“A big cheer went up and we thought they were cheering us for the wicket. But it was obviously for MS (Dhoni) coming to the crease.”

Ranchi is the Indian captain’s home town, a fact that the thousands packed into the Jharkhand State Cricket Association Stadium will never let the world forget.

Besides, why would some nonIndian Premier League (IPL) outfit presume that they could shake the focus of the crowd’s one eye?

The presence in the tournament line-up of CSK, the Mumbai Indians, the Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad mean that almost half of the 10 competing teams are drawn from the IPL.

SA and Australia have two sides each — respectively the Titans and the Lions, and the Brisbane Heat and the Perth Scorchers — and New Zealand and the West Indies one apiece in the Otago Volts and Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel.

Not that De Villiers, a veteran of all six IPL campaigns, was about to admit that the roar of a partisan crowd would unsettle either him or his team-mates.

“I love playing here,” he said. “The Indian crowds are really loud and it’s nice to give them something to cheer about.”

Each team eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League Twenty20 earns a fee of $200,000.

Reaching the semifinals is worth $500,000, while the beaten finalists get to take home $1.3m and the winners $2.5m.

That represents a lot of incentive to excel.