IPL and PSL owners snap up South Africa franchises
Two South African businessmen, two IPL franchises, two PSL franchises, and representatives from Hong Kong and Dubai were unveiled as the owners of the eight teams in South Africa's T20 Global League. The owners, the cities and their marquee players were unveiled at an event in London on Monday.
Durban, Benoni, Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth will each host a franchise, which left no room for the likes of Kimberley, East London and Potchefstroom, who host franchise cricket. The Stellenbosch franchise will likely play at Boland Park in Paarl.
International buyers own three-quarters of the franchises with the biggest name being Shah Rukh Khan. The Bollywood superstar added to his Knight Riders brand with the purchase of the Cape Town franchise to add to teams in Kolkata and Trinidad. There was also a second IPL influence. The Delhi Daredevils' holding company GMR sports bought the Johannesburg franchise.
The two South African-owned franchises are based in Pretoria and Stellenbosch and run by South African businessman Osman Osman, who owns a lifestyle brand, and Brimstone, a company owned by Mushtaq Brey.
Two PSL owners, Fawad Rana of the Lahore Qalandars, and Javed Afridi from the Peshawar Zalmi, bought franchises in Durban and Benoni respectively while the Bloemfontein franchise was bought by Hong Kong's Sushil Kumar and the Port Elizabeth team by Dubai's Ajay Sethi. Both have previous involvement in cricket, Kumar owns a Hong Kong franchise while Sethi is involved at Channel 2 in the UAE.
CSA also unveiled eight ambassadors, all former South African national players: Graeme Smith, Andrew Hall, Ashwell Prince, Herschelle Gibbs, Paul Adams, Allan Donald, Andrew Hudson and Paul Harris.
Despite no Indian players being available for the tournament, its overlap with the BPL, the chances of Australian players being scant given the clash with their summer and the ECB's refusal for Eoin Morgan and Jason Roy to attend the launch, CSA president Chris Nenzani was hopeful the competition would receive global support.
"We thank all other cricket boards and we hope that they will support this venture in the manner that we have helped and supported their leagues. We hope they will help us to make it a success," he said.

More than 400 players have registered their interest with a draft scheduled for August.

Pakistan move closer to direct qualification for 2019 World Cup
Pakistan's triumph in the Champions Trophy has pushed them to sixth in the ICC ODI rankings, and closer to direct qualification for the 2019 World Cup in England.

ODI team rankings

1. South Africa (119)
2. Australia (117)
3. India (116)
4. England (113)
5. New Zealand (111)
6. Pakistan (95)
7. Bangladesh (94)
8. Sri Lanka (93)
9. West Indies (77)
Pakistan, who began the tournament placed eighth, gained four points to move past Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who are now ranked seventh and eighth respectively. Hosts England and the seven highest ranked teams at the cut-off date of September 30, 2017, receive direct qualification for the next World Cup.
"We've got two years until the 2019 World Cup," Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur said after beating India in the Champions Trophy final. "We've got the monkey off our back in terms of qualifying. We now have two years to identify a squad we want to take forward and give them enough game time."
In the ODI bowlers rankings, Pakistan's Hasan Ali, who took 13 wickets in five games to be named Player of the Champions Trophy, broke into the top 10, leapfrogging 12 of his peers to claim the seventh spot.
Batsman Babar Azam moved up three positions to reach a career-high fifth spot in the batting rankings. Babar scored 133 runs in five Champions Trophy games, without a fifty. Fakhar Zaman, who scored two fifties and a hundred in the tournament, was among the top 100 despite playing just four ODIs.
The top four spots in both the batting and bowling rankings - with Virat Kohli and Josh Hazlewood in the lead - remained unchanged.
'We've proven everybody wrong' - Imad
Imad Wasim reserved special praise for Mohammad Amir, whose three wickets at the top set up the final for Pakistan
Pakistan "proved everybody wrong" in the 2017 Champions Trophy, according to allrounder Imad Wasim.
Despite Pakistan coming into the event as the bottom-ranked team and starting with a chastening defeat at the hands of India, Imad rubbished the suggestion that Pakistan were unpredictable and instead claimed they were "one of the best in the world".
And he had special praise for Mohammad Amir, whose spell in the finalproved decisive, and who Imad hailed as "the No. 1 bowler in Pakistan".
"This is not a fluke," Imad said. "We've got a great side; one of the best in the world right now. I don't see that we're an unpredictable side. We've won our last four games and we've proven everybody wrong. We won against South Africa, who are the No. 1 side in the world, so we had the belief we could take anyone down."
Imad credited the experience of playing in the PSL, and the confidence inspired by the team management as key factors in the success.
"The PSL is a big event for us," he said. "You do improve from playing in it. Look at Fakhar [Zaman], Shadab [Khan] and other youngsters who came into the side and made an impact in this major tournament. Credit goes to all the young cricketers who stepped up.
"And credit to the management, too. I've been really lucky to play under Mickey Arthur and Sarfraz Ahmed. They get along really nicely. It's great for bonding. Arthur has supported us throughout the campaign. Even when we lost, he told us we were going to come back and turn things around, and we did.
"Our bowling has been unbelievable, and [in the final] our batting was absolutely fantastic."
He had particular praise for Amir. "I've always believed in Amir. I've played with him since 2007 and captained him for Pakistan Under-19s. I'm one of his best mates, and we really wanted him in the team. He has always been world-class and he is a big-match player, too.
"I met up with him when he had the ban and it was not a good feeling. To live for five years without cricket… he was absolutely distracted from everything. He was down and out.
"Luckily, I played with him in his first game when he was coming back in domestic cricket and I saw him bowling. It was unbelievable - same pace, same everything. He's a natural.
"He's working hard at it now and you can see the way he's bowling. Whatever happened, happened, but he's the No. 1 bowler in Pakistan cricket. After five years out, you imagine how tough he is mentally. The best is yet to come from him."
Imad also believed the best is yet to come from this young Pakistanteam. "Imagine the confidence we get from this," he said. "It's a young team and to win this major event - which we've never won before - is a big achievement for us."


'We leave with our heads held high' - Kohli

'Unorthodox batsmen like Zaman hard to stop' - Kohli
In the end, Virat Kohli fronted up with a smile on his face. He had lost a match that India entered as favourites. India had a superior record over Pakistan at ICC events, including a win when the sides last met in the final of a global event, the World T20 in 2007. But it all came tumbling down in the final as Pakistan's bowlers unraveled the Indian batting unit like a pod of green peas.
India were that bad. Batting, bowling, fielding and intensity - they fell short in each of these facets of their game they had worked hard to improve in every subsequent match this tournament. Kohli was honest in defeat, gave credit to Pakistan for being the better team, but pointed that India should be proud to finish as the runner-up.
"We can be very proud of that as a unit, and we leave here with our heads held high because we understand the kind of expectations and pressures we face as a team," Kohli said. "Credit to everyone for standing up and showing that resilience and reaching the finals, and today we were outplayed in all departments.
"They had to earn their win. They made us make those mistakes because of the way they were bowling and the way they applied the pressure in the field, as well. And we have no hesitations or shame to admit that we could not play our best game today."
Kohli did not hesitate to bowl first, perhaps because of India's comfort factor in chases. He has done so Bangladesh in the semi-finals too. When it was their turn to bat, Mohammad Amir turned the match by removing Rohit Sharma and Kohli in his first two overs. Kohli admitted failure to stitch a partnership didn't help matters.
"Early wickets are never good, especially in a chase," he said. "Then we kept losing wickets. One big partnership would have been the key to set it up nicely. It is always a bad feeling when you get out or the batting doesn't work collectively. Not that we are not playing at our best, we tried our level best, but we just couldn't make things happen today. But personally, yes, it does feel bad."
There were a couple of bright sparks, though: Bhuvneshwar Kumar walking virtually unscathed through the ring of fire and Hardik Pandya finally living up to the potential his captain had been speaking about throughout the campaign.
Pandya was hungry to bowl throughout the Pakistan innings and was the second-most economical Indian bowler behind Bhuvneshwar. Bowling with intensity and hard lengths, Pandya bowled some tight middle overs. He showed the same attitude with the bat.
India were down and out at 72 for 6 in 17 overs. Unaffected, Pandya smashed a 32-ball half-century to give India a glimmer of hope. "When Hardik started hitting, everyone started getting the feeling that we could take the game deep," Kohli said. "That was a pleasant moment. If we can take the game deep, then we can probably get closer to the total. But again, a mix-up or an error at that stage, so these things happen on the field, you understand that as cricketers."
That mix-up was Pandya being run out after Ravindra Jadeja turned his back on him. Pandya bared his frustrations out in public, exchanging words with Jadeja and then grunting loudly all the way back to the dressing room. Kohli was clear Pandya did not need to be apologetic about letting his emotions get the better of him.
"He felt he was in the zone today and he could have done something really special, and that's why the disappointment came out. You're so committed, you're so motivated that when things don't happen, and without even it being a mistake, it can get frustrating. You don't understand why it has happening."
Earlier in the morning, Pakistan had plugged away as soon as their opening pair of Fakhar Zaman and Azhar Ali raised a robust 128-run partnership, which could only be broken through a run out. Kohli said it was Zaman who hurt India the most by his "high risk" strokeplay.
"When guys like Zaman get going, he plays unorthodox shots, they're really difficult to stop," he said. "Eighty percent of his shots were high risk and they were all coming off. Sometimes you have to sit and say, the guy is good enough on the day to tackle anything. You can only do so much.
"We certainly tried to make them hit in areas that we felt it would be uncomfortable, but we just didn't have anything going our way in that partnership. Yes, they opened it up a little bit, but they kept going positive, which was something that could have upset the lines and lengths of the bowlers."
The one area Kohli felt they could have done better was with the extras. India conceded 25 on Sunday, which he felt was a bit too much. "That's something that we certainly need to take care of in the future. Obviously the same bowlers are going to play, the same guys are going to be back. The more consistent you get in learning from games like this, it's better for the team in the future. So yeah, that's an area we certainly need to look at."


West Indies unchanged for first two India ODIs
Jason Holder will lead an unchanged squad in the first two ODIs against India
West Indies have named an unchanged 13-man squad for the first two ODIs of a five-match series against India, opting for continuity after the 1-1 result against Afghanistan earlier in June.
Fast bowler Shannon Gabriel was unavailable as he continues his rehabilitation from an injury that kept him out of the series against Afghanistan, meaning the hosts will be without their premier fast bowler for their most important series this season. The reasons for its importance are not just pragmatic - India brings the most lucrative TV revenues - but also cricketing. West Indies are ranked ninth in the ICC ODI table, with only the top eight guaranteed qualification for the World Cup in 2019. The drawn series against Afghanistan did not help, and this series could represent their last realistic chance to avoid playing a potentially awkward qualifying tournament, where the top two teams will go through to the tournament in England.
India arrive in the Caribbean off the back of a Champions Trophy run to the final, where they finished runners-up to Pakistan. The first ODI is on Friday (June 23) at Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad and Tobago.

West Indies squad: Jason Holder (capt), Devendra Bishoo, Jonathan Carter, Roston Chase, Miguel Cummins, Shai Hope (wk), Alzarri Joseph, Evin Lewis, Jason Mohammad, Ashley Nurse, Kieran Powell, Rovman Powell, Kesrick Williams
New champions: Zaman, Amir and Pakistan raze India for title
Pakistan 338 for 4 (Zaman 114, Azhar 59, Hafeez 57*) beat India 158 (Pandya 76, Amir 3-16, Hasan 3-19) by 180 runs


Tait: 'Players are remembered for performances such as Amir's'
If the 2017 Champions Trophy were to have had another two games, Pakistan might be scoring 750 and bowling teams out for negative 12 by the end of it. Even for a side that is routinely unpredictable, even for a team with a long history of starting slowly then making a white-hot charge through a tournament, what Pakistan have pulled off here is some diamond-studded, galactic-scale nonsense.
Award winners
Golden ball: Hasan Ali (13 wickets at 13.69)
Player of the Tournament:Hasan Ali
Golden Bat: Shikhar Dhawan (338 runs at 67.60)
They have not just defied logic, they have spat in logic's face, questioned the moral inclinations of its parents, kicked it in the shins, kneed it in the groin, strangled it unconscious, then shoved it into the mud and set its trousers on fire.
Remember how, before the match (how long ago that now seems), the cricket world thought India's batsmen would put the match beyond Pakistan if they scored 300? Ha. What actually happened was that newbie opener Fakhar Zaman, playing his fourth international innings, hit 114 from 106 balls in one of the highest-pressure cricket matches of the decade, before a bristling middle order grew the total to 338 for 4, with hitherto unsuspected power and skill.
Remember how the cricket world thought the key period in the contest would be the middle overs in India's innings. Idiots. In actual fact, Mohammad Amir would decapitate the India innings in a scintillating opening burst that brought him the scalps of each of the top three, and then by the middle of the 14th over, India would be 54 for 5, the trophy basically handed over.
Thank the cricket gods that Azhar Ali dropped Virat Kohli at slip in the third over, before Kohli was caught the very next ball. Thank heavens that Pakistan's opening stand of 128 was brought to an end by a running mix-up, whereby both batsmen wound up on the same side of the pitch. Without such moments of incompetence, there is no chance we could plausibly accept this is the same side that lost their opening match to India by 124 runs.
The winning margin here was 180 runs, just for the record. But it may as well have been 180 million, so ridiculous were Pakistan in this match.
It was also impossible, at times, to believe that India were the side playing their fourth major final in six years. The first mistake - the error that bust open the flood gates - was Jasprit Bumrah overstepping in the fourth over to reprieve Fakhar, who had edged the ball to the keeper on three. Soon, India were a mess of uncharacteristic misfields. By the end of the innings they had delivered 13 wides and three no-balls.
And perhaps no top order in the world could have survived Amir today, but the likes of Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni - big-daddy, big-match players - fell away with surprising meekness. Hardik Pandya swatted six sixes off spin and got himself 76 off 43 balls, giving India - six down now - a microscopic speck of hope. But then he was run out when a less-fluent Ravindra Jadeja refused to sacrifice his wicket, and left the field breathing fire. That about encapsulated India's day.
Not that fortune smiled on them either: at one point, in the death overs, a ball had even hit Mohammad Hafeez's off stump, and failed to dislodge the bail.
Beyond Amir's spectacular opening burst - in which Rohit Sharma was trapped in front by a seaming ball and Virat Kohli sent a thick leading edge to point - Shadab Khan insisted on an excellent review that found Yuvraj to be plumb in front of the stumps. Then after the rapid 80-run stand between Pandya and Jadeja, Hasan Ali wiped out the tail, finishing with match-figures of 3 for 19 (second only to Amir's 3 for 16), and a table-topping haul of 13 wickets for the tournament. This, after he had missed the first game. India were all out in the 31st over.
Hasan Ali was Named Player of the tournament
But it was the batting that had set Pakistan's victory up, and of all the surprises they have sprung this tournament, a snowballing innings such as this, in which only one batsman was dismissed for a score of less than 45, seems the most incredible. This was not an innings, really. It was a fantasy.
Even after Fakhar was reprieved by that no-ball in the fourth over, the wisps of madness that have defined Pakistan's campaign were sprinkled right through his knock. Thick edges and mistimed shots off bouncers would become almost reliably fruitful for him - one particularly woeful leg-side heave in the 32nd over landing safe, just beyond midwicket. Constantly, Fakhar got himself into awkward spots and bad positions, and unfailingly, he would find a way to go through with the shot, and survive.
But there were also flashes of inspiration and the roaring ambition of Pakistan's campaign. Uncowed by the near misses, he ran down the pitch to smite India's quicks to the leg side. He flitted about his crease to manufacture shots against the spinners. With no little help from Azhar, he heaped pressure on key members of the opposition attack.
Bumrah was never allowed to recover from the shock of that early missed wicket, going for 24 in his first three-over spell, and 12 off the following two overs. R Ashwin was clattered around almost clinically in his initial spell - this mostly by Azhar - and he went for 28 from his first four overs as well. For the remainder of the innings, both bowlers struggled with their lines and lengths - Bumrah delivering too many hittable length deliveries, Ashwin bowling too predictably straight.
It was after Azhar's dismissal, for which his partner can take most of the blame, that Fakhar raised the tempo to an extent that set Pakistan on track to their eventual score. He hit 15 runs off one Jadeja over (the 26th of the innings), then went after Ashwin next over as well. Having been 56 off 73 balls at one stage, he hit the remaining 44 runs he needed for a hundred off the next 19 balls. The off-balance sweep for four off Ashwin was a fitting way for this innings to go to triple figures.
Fakhar was out soon after, leaving Pakistan at 200 for 2 at the start of the 34th over, but Babar ensured the party would carry on. He was regal square on either side of the wicket, and in a particularly memorable sequence, slapped Pandya past point, then cracked him to the square-leg boundary next ball. Mohammad Hafeez and Imad Wasim then took the baton from Babar, and together, added 71 off the final 45 balls of the innings - Hafeez especially effective as he hit three sixes and four fours in all, to wind up with an unbeaten 57 off 37 deliveries.
I mean, who even knew Hafeez was capable of such things? Did he? Sarfraz Ahmed, in his first major assignment as captain, played his part virtually perfectly, ceding his batting position to men who went on to score rapidly, then managing his bowlers astutely in the early overs.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Hardik Pandya delivered good spells, but India's remaining bowling figures did not make for pretty reading. Bumrah, Ashwin and Jadeja all went at seven and over or higher.

There is no shame, though, in losing to a Pakistan side in the kind of nuclear form that if ever harnessed, could solve the planet's energy needs for centuries. There were a few areas that India could have brushed up, but nothing, perhaps, that might have changed the result.

Mohammad Amir likely to be fit for final


Pakistan fast bowler Mohammad Amir is likely to be fit for selection for the Champions Trophy final against India on Sunday, after completing an entire training session at The Oval on Friday. A back spasm had ruled Amir out of the semi-final against England on June 14, after he failed a fitness test shortly before the toss.
Azhar Mahmood, Pakistan's bowling coach, said Amir was fit but did not comment on whether the bowler would play the final. "Amir bowled today. Amir is fit," Mahmood said on Friday. "We have not decided about (playing him)."
Amir's likely availability could leave Pakistan with a conundrum, albeit a happy one. Despite bowling well, Amir was wicketless in the first two league matches, against India and South Africa. He had success against Sri Lanka, taking 2 for 53 and scoring a valuable 28 not out in an eighth-wicket partnership that sealed a semi-final place for Pakistan.
"When you go to a final, you want your experienced player, you want him to be fully fit and participating on that particular day," Mahmood said. But (we have told him) if he has any doubt he should let us know. At the moment he bowled today. He is fine. Yeah, definitely you would go with Amir, but we don't mind if Amir can't play. If he is not fit, then we have to move on."
In the semi-final, Amir was replaced by Rumman Raees, another left-arm fast bowler who made his ODI debut in the match; he shared the new ball with Junaid Khan and took 2 for 44 in Pakistan's eight-wicket victory.
Along with Hasan Ali, who has emerged as Pakistan's bowler of the tournament, Raees and Junaid surprised England, dismissing one of the best batting units over the last two years for 211. Hasan, who suffered a calf niggle in the semi-final, did not train with the team on Friday but Mahmood said the bowler was resting as a precaution.
"We have the bench strength," Mahmood said. "Last match, when Amir was not there, people were worried about our main strike bowler not playing. But the way Rumman Raees came in and bowled, it showed we have the bench strength. We have guys who have such skill and such an ability that they can perform on any stage. It is just a matter of self belief and confidence. I think anyone can replace anyone."
Mahmood did, however, hint that if Amir was picked on Sunday, it could be at the expense of Raees. "Let us see who is going to play - Rumman Raees or Amir. Doesn't matter. He [Raees] is a quality bowler as well. And he showed in the semi-finals on a big stage he can do the job for us."
Amir has been a near-constant presence in the Pakistan XI since his return to international cricket at the start of 2016, playing 47 out of the side's 57 international matches, across formats, in this period.