With the much-hyped Champions League T20 just around the corner, the official website of the tournament, www.clt20.com, is something that cricket buffs would enjoy visiting. So, we visited the site and found it to be neatly-designed with features addressing the whims of any cricket fan.
Though it would be a bit unfair to compare clt20.com with more popular cricket sites like cricinfo.com or cricnext.com, as the last two focus on the entire cricketing action rather than a single tournament, the former’s look is soothing to the eye and feel is livlier than the biggies.
In fact, clt20.com does manage to outshine its nearest competitors. For instance, the ‘Venues’ option on the site gives a detailed insight into the three match venues — Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore — with maps, weather reports, sight-seeing opportunities and even some historical information about the stadiums. This is definitely a helpful feature for all those fans who would be travelling to see their teams in action.
The other thing, which most fans would enjoy, is the ‘Dug-Out’ section where cricketers talk about off-the-field stuffs. Here you would know that Australian batsman Simon Katich yearned for becoming a chef! You would also know about Daniel Vettori’s favourite holiday destinations and much more.
Apart from usual features like news, statistics and about-players, the site pays extra attention to team details. Since visitors to the site may not be aware of teams like Victorian Bush Rangers or Sussex Sharks, clt20.com has individual team pages, stating their T20 records and highlighting star players.
The site scores high on interactive features, videos of the T20 format and some pictures of the teams and their players. ‘Fantasy Cricket’ is another feature that is bound to attract traffic as fans would surely enjoy playing fantasy games in which one can create his own team by choosing from players participating in the tournament, and score points according to their on-field performances.
Being a tournament-specific site, clt20.com makes online booking of tickets for various ties hassle-free. From past experience, we can say that several glitches appear on sites while exercising this option, but on clt20.com one will not face any such problems.
The litmus test for the portal, however, will come on match days when the quality of the site’s live streaming and commentary will determine whether people stick to it or go back to the usual suspects like cricinfo.com. Overall, it’s a site worth visiting as here there is something for everyone.