MUMBAI: With the mini world cup, The Champions Trophy, kicking off today (10 September) it will be a fight between Max and Doordarshan to see who comes out on top, ratings wise.

While Max will air all the matches, Doodarshan has selected nine matches which will air on DD 1. They include India against Kenya tomorrow (11 September) and the big one India vs Pakistan on 19 September.

While on the subject of India vs Pakistan cricket, it may be recalled that during their World Cup clash last year on 1 March 2003, Max had decimated DD in the ratings war.

Tam data for six metros shows that while Max had a TVR of 20.91 DD only managed 2.28 c&s 4+. Even for 4+ Max was ahead at 13.84 versus 9.01 for DD.

More recently Max managed impressive TVR of 7.99 c&s 4+ six metros when the arch rivals met in the Holland Tourney last month. Keep in mind the fact that the match was rain interrupted. Also, the Holland Tourney is not well known. Evidently Max's ground activities which involved Mandira Bedi playing cricket in different centres with housewives paid off big time.

As had been reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Max has beefed up its wrap around programming Extraaa Innings. The question now is whether Max can equal or even better its World Cup ratings. Watch this space for more on that.