Famous Baseball grounds in the Unites States of America are set for some cricketing action as the Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar-pioneered Legends T20 cricket League will be played on US soil.
The Australian leg-spinning legend confirmed that the famous Yankee Stadium in New York, the Dodger stadium in Los Angeles and Chicago’s Wrigley Field have been booked for staging the Legends T20 Cricket League matches.
Speaking to News Ltd, Warne said: “At this stage, we’ve booked three stadiums, (Chicago’s) Wrigley Field, (New York’s) Yankee Stadium and (Los Angeles’) Dodger Stadium. We’re going to have Bollywood theme nights and it’s all shaping up pretty well. We’re looking at ourselves as a Formula One team. Myself and Sachin had an idea why not take cricket to America and be the Harlem Globetrotters, go around and do free exhibitions at schools… help grow the game of cricket (in a country where there are already) 45 teams in LA,” he added.
Under the reported proposal, a series of matches will be held around the world over a three-and-a-half-year period, with the US to host the first series in September. Tendulkar and Warne have already held a meeting with International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman N Srinivasan and chief executive Dave Richardson to receive the formal go-ahead for the Twenty20 tournament.
The Legends T20 Cricket League will be competing with a parallel T20 cricket league for senior cricketers launched by former Australian cricketer Dean Jones and the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB). The Masters Cricket League (MCL), launched through Jones’ company Major Events, is set to be played in the UAE from February 2016 onwards, with the Emirates board and Dubai’s Grand Midwest Group as partners. This venture will not feature any former cricketers from India.
Brian Lara, Wasim Akram, Jacques Kallis and Adam Gilchrist have been signed as icon players for the six-team event to be played across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. The two-week tournament will have six teams of 15 ex-cricketers each from across the world participating. Meanwhile, Warne and Tendulkar’s league has already signed 28 players, which include greats like Glenn McGrath, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, along with Kallis, Gilchrist, Lara and Akram. Unlike the MCL, this league is being planned more on the lines of an exhibition tournament.
“We’ve signed around 28 players who have all said, ‘If you and Sachin are doing it, we’d like to do it as well’. We’ve got all the players you’d want to see from the past 20 years. Part of the all-stars idea is we go around and the people, who haven’t had the opportunity to see these guys play over the years because they’re based in the States, can come,” Warne said. “We want to go there live, promote the game of cricket for children, put on some events and have some fun playing cricket.
