CHANDIGARH, OCT 7 : The Indian Cricket League (ICL) today announced the team composition for Season 2 – ICL 20s Championship. The overwhelming response that the ICL has received from the cricket fraternity around the world has resulted in addition of its ninth team in form of the Dhaka Warriors. The team composition and captains of the respective teams have been announced.
Ahmedabad Rockets will be led by Damien Martyn while Chandigarh Lions will be captained by Chris Cairns. Other teams taking part are: Chennai Superstars (captain Stuart Law), Delhi Giants (captain Marvan Atapattu), Dhaka Warriors (captain Habib Ul Bashar), Hyderabad Heroes (captain Chris Harris), Lahore Badshahs (captain Inzamam Ul Haq), Mumbai Champs (captain Nathan Astle) and Royal Bengal Tigers (captain Craig McMillan).
Announcing the team composition, Kapil Dev, Chairman-Executive Board, Indian Cricket League (ICL) said, "The ICL sides have evolved over a period of one year fine tuning their team composition to display enough arsenal in every department of the game. In pursuit of the same objective, the ICL Executive Board, in consultation with the team coaches has announced a healthy addition to the talent pool. This comes along with a few strategic player transfers undertaken with the primary objective of optimum utilization of its player talent pool & strengthening the teams in all departments of the game."
The tournament kicks off on October 10 and will witness strategic transfer of players across the eight existing teams. ICL Season-2 will also witness the induction of new players (international and domestic) along with the strong 14-member Dhaka Warriors side, strengthening the cricket talent pool in the ICL. Season-2 also sees a couple of international players like Paul Nixon & Hamish Marshall making their returns on the ICL platform.
New players who have been inducted this season at ICL are-Hafiz Khaleel (Lahore Badshahs), Shahid Yousaf (Lahore Badshahs), Tahir Mahmood Mughal (Lahore Badshahs), Ryan Campbell (Ahmedabad Rockets) and Kunal Lal (Ahmedabad Rockets), while players like Mornantau (Nantie) Hayward (from Royal Bengal Tigers) has been transferred to Chennai Superstars and Hasan Raza and Tofeeq Umer (both from Lahore Badhshas) have been transferred to Mumbai Champs team.
The championship will begin with a high octane opening ceremony on October 10 in Hyderabad. A total of 41 pulsating matches being played at four international standard stadiums in – Hyderabad, Panchkula, Gurgaon and Ahmedabad.