The 10th season of the Celebrity Cricket League concludes this weekend, with the three play-offs and the finale to be held between March 15 and 17.
File image of Kiccha Sudeep leading the revelry in the Karnataka Bulldozers' dug out
The milestone 10th edition of the Celebrity Cricket League, which features teams representing film industries from Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, will draw too a close on March 17. Over three weekends, starting on February 23 in Sharjah and then moving to Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Thiruvananthapuram, the 8 teams, divided into 2 pools of 4 each, played 4 group stage matches a piece, with the top 4 in terms of points and net run rate proceeding to the next phase of the tournament.
The four teams that now move to the next stage are Karnataka Bulldozers, Bengal Tigers, Chennai Rhinos and Mumbai Heroes, with all four registering 3 wins and 1 loss each. Defending champions Telugu Warriors, as well as last year’s runner-up team Bhojpuri Dabanggs were eliminated after the group stage, and joined the Kerala Strikers and Punjab De Sher.
Since CCL 2023, the T20 tournament has been played in Test format, with 4 innings of 10 overs each. Due to this, the organizers also introduced a set of rules to be followed, like for instance the order in which the opening batsmen play. The top 3 batsmen of innings 1 cannot play in the same order in the second innings. The first 3 overs in each innings will be powerplay, with restrictions on placement of fielders. Similarly, the bowlers utilized in powerplay of innings 1, cannot be repeated at that time in the second innings. Each team gets 1 review of an umpire decision per innings, with an allotted time of 50 minutes for 10 overs.
The schedule for the weekend of March 15 to March 17 is as follows – On March 15, the top 2 teams, Karnataka Bulldozers and Bengal Tigers, will play each other in Qualifier 1. This match is at 6.30 pm on March 15. The winner heads to the finale, while the loser gets one more shot at playing the final in the second Qualifier.
The next day, March 16 at 2 pm, teams 3 and 4, the Chennai Rhinos and Mumbai Heroes take on each other in the Eliminator. The winner will play the loser of Qualifier 1 in Qualifier 2 on the same day at 6,30 pm, with the winner of this match then meeting the winner of Qualifier 1 in the final on March 17. The final of CCL Season 10 will be played at 6.30 pm.
All the matches this weekend are set to be played at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram, after a last-minute change saw Vishakhapatnam out of the reckoning. While Bengaluru’s omission on the schedule was down to the Women’s Premier League being played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, the organizers provided no explanation as to why Vishakhapatnam was changed 2 weeks into the tournament.
JioCinema is streaming CCL for free. If you’ve missed any of the earlier matches, there are separate links for each of the 16 group stage contests. Also as telecast partners, Doordarshan and Sony Ten 5 are on board.
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