The owners of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Daredevils have reportedly put in a bid to buy a team in Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) new T20 league.
Infrastructural company GMR Group, which owns Delhi Daredevils, has recruited several Proteas cricketers across the 10 seasons of the IPL.
The CSA’s T20 league, labelled as the T20 Global Destination League, will feature eight city-based teams. The competition is slated to start in early November this year and will end on December 16.
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It is reported that CSA has received over 150 ‘expressions of interest’ from potential owners, with about 40 per cent from South Africa, 35 per cent from India and smaller figures from the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
Lahore Qalandars, the Pakistan Super League franchise, was initially interested, but ultimately decided against it.
“Cricket South Africa were asking for 50 million rand, for 10 years, for bigger cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban — and 30 million over the same period for smaller towns. This with absolutely no financial forecasts, no television deal, nothing concrete around financial forecasting — and no clarity around player quotas,” a reliable source was quoted as saying by Sport24.
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“Lahore’s owners are smart businessmen and simply could not go ahead with this ambiguity attached to such a big ask. They have not put in a bid. The Daredevils have, despite not knowing much information,” the source added.
Eight marquee international players — Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle, Lasith Malinga, Brendon McCullum , Eoin Morgan, Kevin Pietersen, Kieron Pollard and Jason Roy — have agreed playing league contracts with the CSA.
The local marquee players who would be featuring in the league are Quinton de Kock, A.B. de Villiers, J-P. Duminy, Kagiso Rabada, Imran Tahir, Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis and David Miller.