Jason Gillespie in favour of reviving Champions League

Jason Gillespie, Yorkshire's head coach, has said that he is in favour of cricket administrators reviving the Champions League in order to lift the profile of the shortest format of the game. He also suggested that the various boards can look at replacing bilateral Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) with the Champions League.
"If you think about it, there is not a great deal of T20 played internationally," Gillespie wrote in the Evening Standard. "There are World Twenty20s, but they are at least two years apart. While there may be T20 matches in bilateral series, there are not usually too many of them -- and let's face it, they're a money-grab.
"Perhaps you don't even need to have T20 matches between countries outside the World T20. And that perhaps would be the way to promote the Champions League and give it the status and profile it deserves. As was the case before it was halted, you would stage it in a three-week block in a single country."
In June 2008, the boards of Australia, India and England announced that a million dollar tournament, consisting of domestic Twenty20 finalists from England, Australia, South Africa and the IPL, will take place over a 10-day period every year. However, the tournament was discontinued in 2014 due to poor attendances and lukewarm viewership ratings.
Gillespie was the coach of the Yorkshire set-up when they qualified to partake in the Champions League held in South Africa in 2012. The former Australian fast bowler noted that the tournament was a fantastic learning ground for youngsters.
"We were knocked out in the group stages, but faced some excellent teams and players. There were greats of the game like Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, as well as Twenty20 experts like Kieron Pollard and Ravindra Jadeja. It was a fabulous way to learn and improve.
"I'm convinced it could be structured so players, administrators and media supported it. It's a fantastic concept: bring in the best teams from the various T20 competitions around the world and establish which of them is best. What is not to like about that?"
Cricket Australia's (CA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), James Sutherland, also advocated for a revival of the concept of clubs from across the world playing against each other. "We believe there is genuine value in the concept of bringing clubs from different domestic T20 teams together for a world championship play-off," Sutherland told.