Bangalore Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya has said that he would have preferred England as the IPL venue.

The Twenty20 competition was moved out of India because of a clash of dates with general elections and while England were in the running to host the event, the IPL organisers eventually sealed a deal with South Africa.

IPL commissioner Lalit Modi said the weather had been the principle factor in choosing South Africa as the venue.

But while Mallya agreed there was a huge possibility of rain disruptions, he believed the tournament would have drawn bigger crowds in England.

"To be honest, I would have preferred England to South Africa," Mallya said.

"England would also have been cheaper"

"You could have taken just one flight from five or six cities in India to England and it would have been cheaper.

"Besides, an average Englishman loves his cricket and the stands there would have been full of spectators.

"But, I guess the weather conditions clinched the issue for South Africa.

"In England, there were chances that matches would have been rained off and teams sharing points affects the competitiveness of the event," he said.

The Bangalore Royal Challengers have five South African players in their squad - Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn, Dillon Du Preez and Roelof van der Merwe - and Mallya is hoping that would prove an advantage.

"With the way things have turned out and with five South African players in the side, I'm sure we there is some sort of home advantage that we can look forward to," he said.

Mallya expected a short tournament

With the start date of the tournament being pushed back by eight days, Mallya expected the tournament to be shortened, but was prepared for any eventuality.

"We have been told that the tournament will start on April 18," he said.

"But perhaps the match schedule might get compressed as well considering the final is still on May 24.

Mallya says BRC are stronger this time

"We have a strong team and are prepared for any eventuality.

"Last year we had a clear imbalance in our team, our batting line-up wasn't strong enough.

"We were assuming the IPL would be played in India and so we swapped Zaheer Khan for Robin Uthappa.

"The move strengthened our batting and with the acquisition of Kevin Pietersen and Jesse Ryder our batting was quite significantly bolstered.

"We are looking forward to the tournament."