Sachin Tendulkar & Shane Warne plan for T20 event for retired cricket stars
Sachin Tendulkar
Mumbai, May 15 (IANS) Cricket legends Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar are planning a new Twenty20 tournament featuring retired international players featuring in a series of exhibition matches.
Details of the event are still to be formalised but the organisers have drawn a preliminary list of 30 players. The list includes stalwarts like Brian Lara, Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting, Anil Kumble, Brett Lee, Adam Gilchrist, Muttiah Muralitharan, Andrew Flintoff, Glenn McGrath and VVS Laxman, reports theaustralian.com on Friday.
The matches will be held all around the globe over a period of three-and-a-half years. America are tipped to host the first set of matches in September. Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are some of the other locations, starved of top-class cricket, which are being considered.
The proposed event will be known as Cricket All-Stars League and has offered contracts worth $25,000 US dollars a game for the former players, according to the daily.
Neither Warne or Tendulkar has made a comment. But in January Warne, rather suggestively, tweeted: "Sachin and I have an exciting announcement soon".
The organisers have reportedly informed the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) of their plans. The organisers are expected to make a formal announcement soon.
The International Cricket Council (ICC), however, has said they have not received any information regarding the tournament's development.
"There is a process in place with regard to activities such as this and the ICC will deal with it once it is approached," an ICC spokesman said.
But confirmation of such a development was confirmed by former Australia pacer Brett Lee, whose manager, Neil Maxwell revealed Lee had received an offer and would be seeking permission from CA to play.
"I can't see anything wrong with it," Maxwell told Fox Sports on Friday.
"It's a group of retired blokes playing a game of cricket."