It seems Cricket South Africa’s brand new T20 league has found some backing from IPL owners. If this report from ‘Cricbuzz’ is true, then six of the nine IPL franchise owners will have their teams in the up-and-coming tournament which is to be played in February-March 2023.
The report further states that the bidding closed on Wednesday (13 July) which received 29 Expressions of Interest (EoIs) with Mukesh Ambani of Mumbai Indians, N Srinivasan of Chennai Super Kings, Parth Jindal of Delhi Capitals, the Marans of SunRisers Hyderabad, Sanjiv Goenka of Lucknow Super Giants and Manoj Badale of Rajasthan Royals have walked away with the available six franchises.
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The Cricket South Africa (CSA) has maintained that they will release the franchise owners’ data by the end of this month, but report has confirmed that the above mentioned names have already won their respective bids and they have been informed by the Cricket body.
Some other prominent names were also present at the auction with former South Africa born English cricketer Kevin Pietersen-headed consortium also placing bids, but failed to match the massive money power on display by IPL team owners.
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“Mumbai Indians are set to have their team in Cape Town. Chennai Super Kings, one of the most popular IPL franchises, is likely to be given the franchise based Johannesburg while Jindal, the co-owner of the Delhi Capitals, will have his team based out of Centurion in Pretoria. It will be called te Pretoria Capitals,” the reports said.
“Of the remaining two cities, SunRisers Hyderabad could have its team in Port Elizabeth while the Royals are expected to have their base in Paarl,” it added.
Reportedly, MI and CSK placed the biggest financial bids, close to INR 250 crores. As the IPL model goes, each franchise will have to pay 10 percent of the franchise fee for 10 years.
Sanjiv Goenka, who last year bagged the Lucknow franchise of the IPL, is believed to be interested in the Durban franchise.
The league also clashes with another brand new T20 league in UAE; the cricketing world seemed divided. While the likes of Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone have shown interest to play in Rainbow Nation, the likes of Moeen Ali have committed to UAE-based tourney.
“Faf du Plessis, one of the biggest T20 stars who is now a free agent, will stay in South Africa. Dwayne Bravo too will be there, most probably with the CSK-owned team, but many other West Indies are going to the UAE,” the report stated further.
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