Delhi Daredevils bid for franchise in South Africa's new T20 league

In a very surprising turn of events, the popular Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Daredevils has shown their interest in the newly proposed South Africa’s Global Destination League. The new T20 tournament is expected to roll out on the big stage towards the end of the year 2017. Interestingly, the owners of the Delhi Daredevils have put a bid for one of the franchises in the tournament.

As per the recent reports in KweséESPN, the owners of the Delhi Daredevils – the GMR Group – have bid a big amount for bagging a franchise in the Global Destination League. GMR group have been owning the Daredevils camp since the first edition of the Indian Premier League. Their team is yet to register a title win though. The GMR group in an infrastructural company which has its headquarters in Bengaluru, India.

As per the reports, as many as 150 expressions of interest have come to the Cricket South Africa from the potential owners. Among these potential owners, 40 per cent were from South Africa, 35 per cent from India and others from UK, USA, and the UAE. One of the source noted that the bigger cities will have an amount close to 50 million Rand and the smaller ones to have 30 million Rand.

“Cricket South Africa were asking for 50 million rand, for 10 years, for bigger cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban – and 30 million over the same period for smaller towns. This with absolutely no financial forecasts, no television deal, nothing concrete around financial forecasting – and no clarity around player quotas,” a source quoted.

Interest shown by Lahore Qalandars

The sources further revealed that the owners of Lahore Qalandars, a franchise in the Pakistan Super League, also showed interest in bidding. However, they backed out at the last moment. “Lahore’s owners are smart businessmen – and simply could not go ahead with this ambiguity attached to such a big ask. They have not put in a bid. The Daredevils have, despite not knowing much information,” the source noted further.