Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar will be the captain of one of the teams in the Road Safety World Series, a cricket league featuring retired legends of the game from five countries, that will be played in India in February 2020 as a medium to promote road safety in the country.
The league was launched in Mumbai on Thursday in the presence of the five captains – Tendulkar, West Indies great Brian Lara, Australian pacer Brett Lee, South Africa’s Jonty Rhodes and Sri Lanka’s Tillakaratne Dilshan, as well as Virender Sehwag and Sunil Gavaskar, who will be the league’s commissioner.
The T20 cricket league was announced as an annual tournament to be played between retired players of five nations – India, Australia, South Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka. The first season will be played in 2020 between February 2 and 16 in Mumbai and Pune.
The Indian team will be led by Tendulkar and will also feature Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and Ajit Agarkar. Jacques Kallis is expected to play for South Africa while Muttiah Muralitharan is also expected to be a part of the competition.
Brett Lee, the captain of the Australia team, said that he can guarantee the tournament will be competitive despite the participants having given up international cricket. The final list of players is yet to be revealed but the former fast bowler said that compatriots Brad Hodge and Andrew Symonds have been signed.
As of now, around 75 players from the five countries are said to be involved in the league. The five teams are owned by different franchises and a portion of the profits from the league will go to Shant Bharat Surakshit Bharat, an organisation working with the Road Transport department of Maharashtra government.