 England star batsman Kevin Pietersen is the Challangers' prized signing
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The owner of Indian Premier League team Royal Challengers Bangalore has said he would have preferred the tournament to be hosted in England over South Africa.
The lucrative Twenty20 competition was moved out of India because of a clash of dates with general elections.
IPL boss Lalit Modi cited favourable weather conditions as the reason for selecting South Africa.
But Vijay Mallya said: "An average Englishman loves cricket and the stands would have been full of spectators."
The Challengers' star asset is England batsman Kevin Pietersen, who was signed for a record £1.1m at the IPL auction in February.
The former England captain would have been an undoubted draw on home soil, but will now travel to the country of his birth to compete against the world's best players in April.
The early English season is vulnerable to rain showers but with a truncated fixture schedule to arrange, IPL organisers could not afford any weather-related delays.
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To say you are going to get packed houses like in India, I very much doubt it
Ex-South Africa captain Shaun Pollock
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"In England, there were chances that matches would have been rained off and teams sharing points affects the competitiveness of the event," said Mallya.
The Oval would have been among the grounds vying to host matches and Surrey chief executive Paul Sheldon said he was disappointed to learn the tournament was heading to the southern hemisphere.
"We had done a lot of work in the last 48 hours to try to get the logistics and infrastructure ready," he told BBC Sport. "We had been speaking to the ECB, so yes of course we're very disappointed.
"We would have loved to have had it here, with all these wonderful facilities we've got. We've got permanent lights and a new outfield."
The IPL, which will see 59 matches across six venues, will start a week later than planned, running from 18 April to 24 May.
And Modi admitted he faces a race against time to organise a new schedule with less than four weeks preparation.
"When we were working in India, we started out on this tournament for the last nine months," he said.
"Now, we have got to put up probably the single largest logistics operation across any sport across the world in a matter of 25 days.
"We are going to be consuming in excess of 30,000 hotels rooms and 10,000 airline tickets."
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606: DEBATE
Moutarde
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South Africa successfully hosted the International Cricket Council's inaugural World Twenty20 championships in 2007, a tournament which drew healthy crowds across three venues.
But former South Africa captain Shaun Pollock believes the crowds will not compare with the numbers in India.
"To say you are going to get packed houses like in India, I very much doubt it," he told BBC Sport.
"South Africa has taken to Twenty20 cricket and the domestic format sees really good crowds.
"I'm sure as the tournament gathers momentum you will probably get more people coming out to watch it."
"But at the start it will be ambitious to get full stadiums."
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