We started another project off line during the middle of last year (2023). This was known as the Cricket Legends League. It was a draft league project, consisting of 8 Franchise teams. Each team was made up of National players based on the Franchise location, plus 3 overseas players. Players were from the 1970s/1980s/1990s eras and were drafted after a random order was determined. Teams were allowed to make transfrers based on injuries and/or player form. There were 2 transfer windows in the 4th and 9th rounds (each window lasted 2 rounds).
Here are the final squads for each franchise:
Each team played each other twice, earning 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 1 for a Bonus point (awarded for winning the first innings of a match, akin to the Sheffield Shield).
Season One was really interesting (if quite long). The Kingston Reds won the league and led for most of the tournament. There were brief challenges by the Lahore Cobras and Wellington Reds, but the Reds were simply too good. The Colombo Crusaders finished bottom of the league after a really tough season, winning just twice and both times away from home.
Here is the Season One Table for the CLL:
Mahela Jayawardene and Muttiah Muralitharan both had fantastic seasons for the Crusaders. Their heroics were unable to save them however. Jayawardene top scored in runs while Muralitharan was 2nd only to Joel Garner, who played as an overseas player for the Kolkata Lightning. The leading runs and wicket averages are below:
In addition to keeping stats, we also used a fantasy points system based on one of the many available online. In season 1, Lahore Cobras captain and all-rounder Imran Khan was the overall fantasy points leader after a very good season. Ian Botham was 2nd and the Kingston Reds captain, Viv Richards finished 3rd.
Richards was superb all season, hitting 7 centuries and he was ultimately voted as player of the tournament.
Although Season 1 was really interesting to play, it felt too long in parts. We wanted to continue the project however and so made a few changes going forward.
A second division would be introduced with 4 new franchise teams.
The bottom 2 teams would be relegated and go into Division 2. Durban and Colombo were therefore relegated.
This meant that there would be 6 teams in Division One and 6 in Division Two. Each team would play each once in their division (making 5 games per team and 15 per Division, 30 overall). This is just over half the size of the original format.
In addition, points would be awarded similar to County Cricket. They would be awarded for each teams 1st Innings only, based on:
Runs: 150 - 1 pt, 200 - 2 pts, 250 - 3 pts, 300 - 4 pts
Wickets: 3-4 - 1 pt, 5-6 -2 pts, 7-8 - 3 pts, 9-10 - 4 pts
in addition there would be 8 points awarded for a win. Prior to the start of the season, Each of the original franchises needed to reduce their squads to 8 players. Another draft then took place for all squads. This time though, we expanded the pool to include players from our previous projects (the ATG and Decades league). This gave a pool of approx 600 players. Each player was graded based on average and each team was restricted to the number of each grade allowed (this was done in hope of balancing squads).
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