T10 Cricket League Teams First-Look: Brendon McCullum, Rashid Khan, and Chris Lynn Named Icon Players In First Draft

T10 Cricket League will see Rashid Khan, Chris Lynn, Brendon McCullum, and Andre Russell participate in the newly-conceptualised cricket league, this year. Also in this edition, eight teams will be participating in the tournament, an increase from six teams last season. All the eight franchises met in Dubai to pick their squads (Icon player and others).

Only the first draft of the squad was finalised with teams picking their respective icon players. The 19-year-old spin wonder from Afghanistan, Rashid Khan, will be an icon player for the Maratha Arabians; Virender Sehwag was their icon player last season.

For the Rajputs team, former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum will be their icon player this season. Shane Watson, who rediscovered his mojo in the 2018 Indian Premier League (IPL) will be the icon player for the Karachians team. Sunil Narine, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Eoin Morgan, and Darren Sammy were the others cricketers who were picked as icon players for their respective sides.

The six teams that participated in the last season were allowed to retain four players in total; two in category A, and one each in category B and C; whereas, the two new teams had the freedom to choose their first-five players. The categories are created by player’s form, experience and the tournament fee.

The fact that T10 League grabbed a lot of eyeballs during its previous edition was visible when the tournament organisers raised the franchise-fee from USD 400,000 to USD 1.2 Million this time, for the new teams.

As per a report on Cricinfo, the Chairman of the T10 League, Shaji Ul Mulk said, “The response I can tell you has been exceptional over the year since we launched T10. 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.”

A Look at All the T10 Teams of the T10 League after Mini Draft:

Maratha Arabians: Rashid Khan (Icon player), James Faulkner, Alex Hales, Dwayne Bravo, and Kamran Akmal.

Rajputs: Brendon McCullum (Icon player), Mohammad Hafeez, Rilee Rossouw, Chris Lynn, and Mohammad Shahzad.

Pakhtoons: Shahid Afridi (Icon player), Colin Ingram, David Willey, Mohammad Irfan, and Liam Dawson.

Karachians: Shane Watson (Icon player), Jofra Archer, Anton Devcich, Colin de Grandhomme, and Ben Laughlin.

Bengal Tigers: Sunil Narine (Icon player), Jason Roy, Sam Billings, Asif Ali, and Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

Punjabi Legends: Shoaib Malik (Icon player), Evin Lewis, Chris Jordan, Luke Ronchi, and Liam Plunkett.

Kerala Kings: Eoin Morgan (Icon player), Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir, Paul Stirling, and Dasun Shanaka.

Northern Warriors: Darren Sammy (Icon player), Andre Russell, Dwayne Smith, Wahab Riaz, and Nicholas Pooran.

An increase in the number of teams means that the number of the matches and the length of the tournament would see an increase too. The last edition saw 13 games being played in the competition for four days. This year, there will be a total of 28 matches which will be played over ten days.

The second part of the team drafting will take place on September 2, where franchises will meet to finalise their squad for the tournament which is reportedly being said to take place in December, later this year.

The 10-over-a-side game will be played in round robin format. Last year, the T10 Cricket League title was won by Kerala Kings. The schedule and the time-table of the T10 Cricket League 2018 haven’t been announced yet. Stay tuned with us for all the latest updates and news on T10 Cricket League.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 24, 2018 01:13 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).