Hong Kong’s City Sports to invest US $100 million in South Africa's T20 Global League
The owners of Hong Kong T20 Blitz team, City Kaitak, which is owned by City Sports, are to spend more than US $100 million over 10 years to support a South African franchise in the new Global T20 League to be launched later this year.
City Sports, which is part of the Hong Kong-based City Group, is one of eight successful bidders for franchises – out of 26 bids and 150 expressions of interest – for the ambitious league. The team will play out of Bloemfontein, the capital city of Free State province, in a league which will be played every year in November and December.
Co-owner, Alok Jain, said, “We at City Sports were quite excited with the overall performance of the Hong Kong tournament and international demand for good quality T20 cricket, It was obvious to look for expansion beyond the bounds of Hong Kong. Coincidentally, CSA [Cricket South Africa] also announced their invitation for T20 Global League right around that time. We took a leap of faith and submitted our bid. We are excited that we made the final cut and thank CSA for considering our participation aligned with their vision.”
He further added, "It is for the love of the game. Each of us have been active in sports in our youth and a big part of our friendship revolves around cricket. Up until 2016, we used to sponsor cricket tournaments and venues and then Cricket Hong Kong opened doors for a new cricket franchise, which motivated us to make a bid. Eventually, we were successful and our team City Kaitak were the runners up in Hong Kong T20 Blitz."
Bloemfontein will retain dashing South African batsman David Miller as their franchise player and will play at the Mangaung Oval.
City Kaitak finished runners-up at the 2017 Hong Kong Blitz and brought in players such as Sri Lankan Tillakaratne Dilshan, West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran and Rayad Emrit, England’s Chris Jordan and Scotland’s Kyle Coetzer.
Like with its Hong Kong sister side, City Sports hope to be involved in developing the game among the community in South Africa.