The event will take the place of the KPL, which was last staged in 2019.
It was revealed on Saturday that the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20 tournament, the Karnataka State Cricket Association’s first-ever T20 offering, will take place from August 7 to 26.
It replaced the Karnataka Premier League (KPL), which operated for eight seasons until 2019 before being suspended due to a match-fixing and betting scandal. The league will start in Mysuru and progress to Bengaluru.
Six teams will compete in the tournament, representing Mysore, Shivamogga, Hubballi, Raichur, Mangaluru, and Bengaluru. The Maharaja Trophy, however, won’t be franchise-based with club owners like the KPL; instead, it will just have team sponsors. Among them are Fiza Developers, Cycle Pure Agarbathies, and Kalyani Motors.
KSCA – Draft method for selecting players
Instead of an auction, there will be a drafting method to choose players on July 30. On the day of the selection, the six teams will be put together by the KSCA, which has hand-picked six sets of a head coach, assistant coach, selector, and a Ranji Trophy player each. Mansur Ali Khan, Stuart Binny, P.V. Shashikanth, and T. Nasiruddin are just a few of the head coaches who were once professional players.
Players can be selected from one of four pools: A (Indian and IPL players), B (senior state), C (U-25, U-23, and U-19), and D. (the rest). Manish Pandey, K. Gowtham, Karun Nair, Devdutt Padikkal, and Abhimanyu Mithun, among others, are anticipated to compete, and the competition will be live-streamed on Star network.
Santosh Menon, KSCA secretary, stated, “We are looking to imitate the [Australian] Big Bash League structure. The teams will be created and the competition will be managed by us. In contrast to the past, when we divided the management of all issues among teams, we shall be solely responsible. We have asked the BCCI to send anti-corruption teams, and we will work hard to ratchet up security.
Unpleasant events from 2019 – KSCA Stated
The KSCA denied that moving away from the franchise-based model was influenced by the unsavoury events from 2019, when one of the team owners was detained for his apparent involvement in the betting scam.
According to the Justice Lodha Committee’s recommendations, a franchise league would have turned the event into a commercial activity and resulted in a significant tax burden, according to KSCA spokesperson Vinay Mruthyunjaya. “We had a talk with a few attorneys/ lawyers, and they agreed with us. We didn’t want to sacrifice trade to miss out on cricket.
After a two-year decline brought on by COVID, KSCA president Roger Binny believed that the Maharaja Trophy would rekindle interest in the sport in the region. “This [competition] will benefit us and enhance our development. You can rely on us, Binny assured them.
What number of teams will play in the Maharaja Trophy T20?
The competition will include six teams from Bengaluru, Mysore, Hubli, Shivamogga, Raichur, and Mangalore competing for top honors.
The first match in the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20 will begin on August 7 at the Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar Ground in Mysore. 18 matches will be played in Mysore, followed by 16 matches, including the championship game, in Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium, according to KSCA Secretary Santosh Menon.
“All of the top cricketers under the age of 35 will be eligible to compete in the competition. The teams will be selected based on a player selection, and the KSCA will propose the captains and vice captains for each team. We will also assign support staff for each of the six teams, Menon continued.
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