Champions League commissioner Lalit Modi on Thursday dismissed allegations that the England and Wales Cricket Board was not consulted before finalising the dates of the T20 event and asked the ECB to tweak its county schedule.
Modi announced on Wednesday that this year's Champions League would take place from September 10-26 in venues yet to be named and it clashed not only with England's County Championships and a new 40-over league but also with their ODI series against Pakistan.
The ECB said in a statement that they were not consulted before finalising the Champions League dates but Modi dismissed the allegation.
"(This is) not true," Modi said, adding that CL Governing Council member Dean Kino "is and has been in touch with (ECB chief executive) (David) Collier on a regular basis since December (2009)."
The ECB is most upset with CL clashing with both the domestic tournaments, to which Modi's suggestion was to change dates.
"We hope the ECB will be able to bring forward their domestic tournament and be able to participate by making this minor adjustment to their schedule," Modi told Cricinfo.
Modi said scheduling the Twenty20 league was always a complicated task since the existing Future Tours Programme had to be kept in mind.
"Given that Australia's tour to India begins on October 2 and other countries also have pre-committed FTP games it was the only window available this year," Modi said.
"We will always endeavour to accommodate all countries as much as possible, and the governing council looked at all possibilities and decided that these were the only dates," he explained.
