Champions League dates - what's the problem?

It's not easy to find out exact dates of future fixtures it seems - give it a try and you're a better man that I if you can work out the exact date that the first match of the 7 match ODI series between India and Australia is on October. Looking at the ICC's future tour programme spreadsheet, it looks like it doesn't start until the second week of October - i.e. w/c 11th October.


Now looking at the English county fixtures, it looks like they finish 18th September. If you want to worry about the Pakistan ODIs that England play - I suppose the ECB have to given existing sponsorship and TV deals - they finish on 22nd September. So the Champions League could quite easily start on Friday 24th September and finish Monday 11th October (apparently it needs 17 days as the dates suggested are 10th-26th September). That would allow India to play their series against Australia by the end of October, starting towards the end of w/c 11th.


Rather than reluctantly having to be unavailable, English counties shouldn't need to. India should be moving back their ODI series against Australia and stop suggesting that they have no flexibility over the 2nd October apparent start date.


The problem here is that the ICC is powerless. They should be able to instruct India to change their dates and avoid this problem altogether, but they...like everyone else...has to bow to India's money and work around them.