Champions League in USA sights?

The prospect of the Twenty20 roadshow reaching the USA in the near future has moved a step closer following meetings between Don Lockerbie, the chief executive of USACA, and Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, in Dubai.

In an intriguing piece of timing, the talks between the two men came on the same day that Modi unveiled the dates for the 2010 Champions League tournament.

It appears, though, that the IPL will reach the Americas before the Champions League. "We will work with the USACA to develop official IPL games over the next 18 months," Modi told Cricinfo. "We will start with exhibition matches."

Lockerbie, too, played down the prospect of playing host to the Champions League this year but did not rule out being ready for future editions.

"I have not only been watching the IPL developments with some interest, I've been sitting on the same couch [as Modi]," Lockerbie told Cricinfo. "We are going to be making an announcement any day about a collaboration, to see the IPL's promises of coming to the United States manifest themselves pretty soon."

Earlier this week, Modi restated his desire to break into an untapped market that is believed to contain up to 20 million cricket fans, many of whom are of Asian origin, and the Champions League, with its 16-day duration, is the right sort of length for a taster tournament.

The timing of this year's tournament, which Modi confirmed will be held at an as-yet unspecified venue from September 10 to 26, caused instant consternation at the England & Wales Cricket Board, because the dates sit squarely over the culmination of the English domestic season. However, that same period also coincides with the tail-end of the summer in USA, with temperatures in New York ranging between 16 and 26 degrees Celsius.

'We are looking at a shorter version of the league post the IPL seasons, which will help us take the game to the fans across the globe," Modi declared on Monday. 'We will also host a few matches in the US in the next 18 months or so. My team have started examining venues and dates which may be available for this in the summer months. The duration for all these tournaments will be short and compact."

Seeing as that 18-month timeframe would have to be condensed down to seven to make any such proposal workable, the notion of the Champions League heading to America remains a long shot. But, having moved the 2009 IPL from India to South Africa at a month's notice last April, Modi has already demonstrated what he can achieve at short notice.

At present the USA's only international-standard venue is the 20,000-capacity complex at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but in describing his country as "the land of the temporary stadium", and citing the example of the annual Masters golf tournament at Augusta, Lockerbie floated the possibility of extra structures being put in place if the need arose.

"The opportunity to expand the vision of the IPL around the world definitely includes the United States, and we're going to put together a working group to get serious about what could happen in the USA," said Lockerbie. "We have a tremendous fan-base, but limited resources and infrastructure. We only have one major stadium at present in the country, and you can't put on any kind of IPL tournament with only one stadium. It's not very likely ... this year."

As venue development director at the 2007 World Cup, and having helped to introduce another unfamiliar sport to the USA through his consultancy role at the 1994 football World Cup, Lockerbie is confident he has the necessary experience to meet the standards required for a high-profile cricket tournament.

"During the 2007 tournament I was also responsible for laying the outfields and wickets, so I'm not concerned about the challenge of getting the wickets up to the right standard, or whether we can put them together quickly enough," he said. "But it would really help to have major events coming to America, so that we can work with communities to get those venues properly developed.

"We are in very serious discussions with New York, and the surrounding tri-state area as they call it. Everybody in cricket knows that the US has its hand up and is looking for business, and we'd like to see a big event awarded to us, to help us dynamically work with cities and governments, and help us with the development of cricket stadiums in those areas."