By Rafiq Vayani
DUBAI: Karachians, the new T10 Cricket Team launched in April, has announced Shane Watson – former Australian Cricket team Captain and one of the most sought after cricket players in the world today, as the team’s Icon Player for the T10 League to be held later in the UAE.
T10 League is a professional ten-over format Cricket League launched in 2017 and owned by T10 Sports Management, it is approved by the Emirates Cricket Board. It is the first ever internationally ten-over format approved league. Matches have 10-over-a-side format with duration of 90 minutes.
Karachians, which was approved as a T10 League franchise team last month, is owned by Artistic Properties – a Dubai-based boutique property developer.
“We are pleased to announce that Shane Watson, the former Australian cricket team captain and one of the best cricketers in the world today, has joined the Karachians to lead the line-up of prestigious international cricket players at the T10 Cricket League that was founded in the UAE last year,” Mr Mohsin Imran, Director of Artistic Properties and Co-Owner of Karachians, said.
“Our choice of Shane Watson demonstrates our position and seriousness in promoting the UAE’s home-grown T10 Cricket League and we are proud to say that this is the beginning of many more to come.
“Being a newcomer in the T10 League format, Shane Watson will lead an aggressive campaign for Karachians to win the title in our first participation in the tournament. Karachians will bring the necessary ingredients – the crowd, fan-following, the star cricketers and the sponsors to the T10 League and help it gain further popularity to the nascent tournament, especially after his match- winning century in the finals of the just-concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) on Sunday.”
Shane Watson, one of the most successful cricketers of his time, made his international debut in 2002 during the tour of South Africa in the ODI series. He played in all the three formats – Test, One-Day Internationals (50-Over format) and T20 Internationals. In an international career spanning 14 years, Shane Watson played 59 Test, 190 ODIs and 58 T20, scoring 9,541 runs in all the three formats and taking 291 wickets. He retired from the Australian cricket team in 2016.
