Kolkata Knight Riders Owner Shah Rukh Khan Buys Team In South Africa's T20 League 1

After tasting immense success in India and West Indies with his T20 franchises, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is all set to start a new innings with another team and in another country. The actor has now extended his  Knight Riders brand by purchasing Cape Town franchise for South Africa’s upcoming  T20 Global League. Shah Rukh Khan already owns Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League and the Trinbago Knight Riders in the Caribbean Premier League.

The upcoming T20 league will have some good Indian flavour as not only Shah Rukh Khan but GMR Sports, the owner of Delhi Daredevils, have also bought the Johannesburg franchise.

The eight franchisees have been bought by two South Africa-based businessman, two Indian Premier League franchises, two Pakistan Super League franchises, Hong Kong and Dubai-based businessmen. The owners along with the cities and their marquee players were unveiled at an event in London on Monday (June 19).

The tournament is seen as South Africa’s answer to the hugely successful Indian Premier League and Australia’s Big Bash.

“We are certain that our final eight owners have the perfect combination of strategic insight and passion needed to make the first T20 Global League a complete success,” said Cricket South Africa president Chris Nenzani said.

The schedule of the tournament has not been announced yet but is slated to start in early November and end on 16 December 2017. But before the tournament a player draft is set to take place on 19 August, with almost 400 players from 10 countries confirming their interest.

Here is the list Global T20 host cities, owners and the marquee players:

Durban – Fawad Rana, Hashim Amla

Benoni – Javed Afridi, Quinton de Kock

Pretoria – Osman Osman (SA), AB de Villiers

Stellenbosch – Mustag Brey (SA), Faf du Plessis

Cape Town – Shah Rukh Khan, JP Duminy

Bloemfontein – Sushil Kumar, David Miller

Johannesburg – GMR Group. Kagiso Rabada

Port Elizabeth – Ajay Sethi, Imran Tahir