Rashid Khan will play T10 in this season. (Source: Express Archive)
Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan and West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell are the new additions in the T10 League. The number of franchises have increased and there will be eight teams who will battle it out in the tournament. The franchises gathered in Dubai on Monday for a mini-draft and picked the players. The teams will now meet on September 2 for the main draft.
Apart from Rashid and Russell, Chris Lynn and Brendon McCullum are also the new additions to the league. Rashid will play for Maratha Arabians while McCullum will be donning Rajputs’ jersey along with Lynn. Pakhtoons have retained former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi as their icon player while Eoin Morgan and Shoaib Malik have renewed their contracts with Kerala Kings and Punjabi Legends respectively.
Northern Warriors will have the services of three West Indies players, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell and Dwayne Smith while fast bowlers Jofra Archer is a part of Karachians. Ahmed Shehzad and Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed have been released by their franchises.
The existing six team were allowed to retain a couple of players from category A, and one each from category B and C.
Earlier, the SWOT analysis presented by ICC listed the T10 tournament as “threat.” “The response I can tell you has been exceptional over the year since we launched T10,” Shaji Ul Mulk, the chairman of the T10 League, told ESPNcricinfo. “The commercial success of T10 is the very fact that we have sold two news teams for USD 1.2 million each and have sold partial shares of Kerala Kings with the same price. So this has immediately given a valuation to the existing team owners.
“With new valuation, the stakes have grown with the format itself evolving further. After the sensational success of the first year and making global history, T10 Cricket League management has decided to allow the other existing five teams to resell full or partial shares.
“It’s actually about creating value for the existing team owners in line with the triple valuation of the league in the first year since inception. It’s a very rare cricket league in the world that in a year has become cash positive. For the new teams we will be seeing positive growth because we hope to have another one or two teams in next couple of years and I am sure the valuation by that time will be much higher than it is today.”
T10 teams after the mini draft
Maratha Arabians: Rashid Khan (icon), James Faulkner, Alex Hales, Dwayne Bravo, Kamran Akmal
Pakhtoons: Shahid Afridi (icon), Colin Ingram, David Willey, Mohammad Irfan, Liam Dawson
Bengal Tigers: Sunil Narine (icon), Jason Roy, Sam Billings, Asif Ali, Mujeeb Ur Rahman
Punjabi Legends: Shoaib Malik (icon), Evin Lewis, Chris Jordan, Luke Ronchi, Liam Plunkett
Kerala Kings: Eoin Morgan (icon), Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir, Paul Stirling, Dasun Shanaka
Rajputs: Brendon McCullum (icon), Mohammad Hafeez, Rilee Rossouw, Chris Lynn, Mohammad Shahzad
Northern Warriors: Darren Sammy (icon), Andre Russell, Dwayne Smith, Wahab Riaz, Nicholas Pooran
Karachians: Shane Watson (icon), Jofra Archer, Anton Devcich, Colin de Grandhomme, Ben Laughlin