Haroon Lorgat Wants Players Like Virat Kohli In New Twenty20 Global League
Feb 5, 2017 at 12:13 PM
As Cricket South Africa (CSA) is considering to launch the Twenty20 Global League, Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat, on Saturday, stressed the league would play a major role for the Proteas players after many decided to exercise the Kolpak agreement.
“Yes I must say that when we conceptualised a franchise based T20 league, the Kolpak was a major consideration. Obviously, you want to give opportunity to the South African players to grow and also make a career out of cricket,” Lorgat said.
Earlier, Kyle Abbott and Rilee Rossouw signed for English county team Hampshire following the Kolpak agreement with United Kingdom to earn their livelihood.
After sharing the trade relations, the Kolpak agreement allows South African cricketers to play for a country like England.
“The global tenders are out and considering the ties that both India and South Africa share, it would be a great experience,” Haroon added.
Haroon also laid emphasis on strengthening the cricketing ties between the CSA and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) before stating they would like to have players like Virat Kohli in the franchise based league.
“International cricket is sacrosanct and there would be no compromise. But it would be incredible for the league if we get a player like Virat Kohli on boars,” remarked Lorgat.
Lorgat said the league would provide the players’ best of the opportunities as it would be an eight-team tournament which will kick start in the later quarter of 2017.
“Earlier, the only way to have a good career was to play for South African national team but this league with eight teams will have 88 slots for Proteas players,” Lorgat added.
As the T20 League would be eyeing the Indian investors, according to Lorgat, the league would be played in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“South Africa being a great country to tour and the time zone being convenient for the Indian sub-continent, we would love to have Indian investors on board,” Lorgat concluded.