Cricketing icons Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Jonty Rhodes, Mutthiah Muralitharan, Virender Sehwag are among the big names to feature in Road Safety World Series — a T20 tournament which aims to promote road safety.
A total of 110 retired international cricketers — which also include the likes of Tillakaratne Dilshan, Brett Lee and Zaheer Khan — have confirmed their participation in the league, which is scheduled to be played in Mumbai and Pune from February 2-16, next year.
With the Professional Management Group and the Road Safety Cell of the Maharashtra government as the organisers, the league will feature six teams — India Legends, Australia Legends, South Africa Legends, Sri Lanka Legends and West Indies Legends.
Tendulkar on Ganguly: He will serve the nation with same passion
While Tendulkar will lead the Indian side, Lara will lead West Indies. Dilshan, Lee and Rhodes will lead the Sri Lankan, Australian and the South African sides respectively.
The league will have a total of 10 league matches where teams will play each other and it will be followed by the final.
The organisers is understood to have received a nod from the BCCI in August, last year, to conduct the league.
The tournament will be based on the franchise model, which is common across domestic T20 leagues around the world, and the players' payments would be taken care of by the franchises.
However, the proceeds from the tournament would be utilised by the Road Safety Cell to promote the cause in addition to highlighting how India ranks the highest in the world in terms of deaths caused on roads.
"When the legends participate in the league, they will carry the messages of road safety," former India captain, Sunil Gavaskar, the commissioner of the league, said, while addressing the media on Thursday.
This will be Tendulkar's third-time return to playing cricket since his retirement in 2013. He played for the MCC against Rest of the World XI at Lord's in 2014 and also featured in three exhibition T20s in the US in 2015.
He, however, has maintained his association with cricket being the mentor of Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.
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