Cricket South Africa (CSA) will launch its new T20 League in January 2023 and the franchise tournament has drawn plenty of interest from the IPL team owners as well.
In fact, CSA’s T20 competition, featuring six teams, will be an extension of IPL with all the teams reportedly being purchased by the owners of the Indian Premier League.
According to a report in Cricbuzz, the owners of Mumbai Indians (Mukesh Ambani), Chennai Super Kings (N Srinivasan), Delhi Capitals (Parth Jindal), Sunrisers Hyderabad (Kalanithi Maran), Lucknow Super Giants (Sanjiv Goenka) and Rajasthan Royals (Manoj Badale) have bought the available six franchises among the 29 parties with Expressions of Interest (EoIs).
The report further says that the Mumbai Indians will have a Cape Town-based team while the Super Kings will own the Johannesburg team. The Capitals will have a Centurion-based team in Pretoria while the Super Giants are likely to have the Durban team.
Sunrisers could have their team based out of Port Elizabeth whereas the Rajasthan Royals are expected to take over the Paarl franchise.
The winner of the six franchises will be declared by the end of the month.
CSA’s T20 league is set to coincide with the new UAE league in which Shah Rukh Khan co-owned Kolkata Knight Riders have purchased the Abu Dhabi side. The clash of the two tournaments also means a divide in the participation of leading T20 stars.
As per the report, some of the England players like Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone want to take part in the CSA league while Moeen Ali has preferred the UAE league.
On the other hand, former CSK duo of Faf du Plessis and Dwayne Bravo are likely to feature in the CSA league but several other West Indies players are expected to go to UAE.
(With Cricbuzz inputs)