The Champions League T20 is on the heels of its relaunch as soon as next year in September, after it was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald that the concept and the competition had the backing of the key member nations at the ICC's annual conference in Singapore. A World Cup of club teams of sorts was put into motion by cricket boards from India, Australia, England and South Africa a year after the inaugural T20 World Cup. The tournament ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2014 before being disbanded.
Considered ahead of its time, the time was never ripe for a tournament like that to make a return with T20 leagues germinating in all corners of the world and that becoming an avenue for the players in the twilight of their careers to walk into the sunset with respect to monetary benefits. The competition had teams from the IPL, Big Bash League, South Africa's T20 Challenge, England's T20 Blast and one team each from T20 competitions in Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Pakistan and the West Indies.
A decade later, CPL has become a huge deal in the West Indies, England have a couple of their short-form tournaments running in parallelly, while the crowds, sponsors and players have taken to SA20 in South Africa like fish to water. The CLT20 was last played in 2014; however, its return will probably affect the FTP for the international cricket calendar as well.
Test cricket breaking into two tiers is also a genuine possibility, the report stated, with a final decision on it set to be taken by the end of the year. While the quality of Test cricket among a few teams is a concern, this decision might be completely based on the financials and the inability of certain teams to host red-ball cricket due to inadequate returns.
The number of Test teams may be capped depending upon the countries making money from hosting red-ball cricket, compared to the others who are not and in return not being able to develop competitive teams to perform at the highest level. The ICC also confirmed that the next three WTC finals will continue to take place in England until 2031, at least.