One of the two new IPL inducted teams Ahmedabad is all set to announce Hardik Pandya as their captain. They are likely to make an official announcement on January 22 which is also the deadline date to announce their drafts picks. To announce him as captain, the IPL franchise wants to connect with local flavour.
According to reports, the other two draft picks for the franchise would be Afghanistan‘s leg spinner, Rashid Khan and Shubman Gill. Rashid earlier refused to stay with Sunrisers Hyderbad as their second retention (for ₹11 crores) but Ahmedabad is likely to give him that extra 4 crores and he will likely get the same amount (₹15 crores) as Hardik.
While Gill will get the third slot as no.3 pick to get ₹7 crores. Gill was previously with the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise but they didn’t retain him as their 4 retentions were Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy and Venkatesh Iyer.
Meanwhile, the franchise also announced Ashish Nehra as their head coach for the season. Nehra previously worked with RCB as their mentor.
“The company aims to marry its global expertise with an understanding of the Indian market and Indian essence through its presence in India, CVC also recognizes the phenomenal success of the IPL and respects that.
“But they want to bring the best of their global expertise/experience and to marry that with what has been an incredibly successful league. So the whole positioning will be young, fresh internationals blended with huge respect for India and everything IPL has achieved,” a source close to the franchise revealed to Cricbuzz.
The franchise also is looking to appoint former England opener Vikram Solanki as their director of cricket to oversee all things.
Also, they hired a couple of agencies to suggest a name to connect them with the local crowd of Gujarat. They also hired the agency ‘Vector’ to suggest them options for the management that would suit their local flavour.
Earlier CVC Capital’s participation was in doubt when their links were found with online betting and gambling companies but the matter has been cleared by the BCCI legal team.
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