ISLAMABAD: Canadian cricket franchise Vancouver Knights announced recently it had appointed Pakistan’s Muhammad Rizwan to lead the franchise in the upcoming season of the Global T20 league, which would feature some of the world’s top cricketing talents in action later this month.
The Global T20 Canada is a professional Twenty20 cricket tournament that is played in the country. The first two editions of the tournament were played in 2018 and 2019 before the league was suspended for three years due to the coronavirus pandemic, returning in 2023.
The fourth edition of the tournament will begin in Canada from July 25 to August 11 and will feature six franchises, the Brampton Wolves, Montreal Tigers, Vancouver Knights, Toronto Nationals, Mississauga Panthers and Surrey Jaguars.
“Hear ye, hear ye! The Vancouver Knights have chosen their captain for GT20 Season 4: Sir Mohammad Rizwan,” Vancouver Knights wrote on social media platform X on Sunday. “With his mighty batting skills and sharp wicketkeeping, he’s ready to lead our charge to victory.”
Rizwan will captain fellow Pakistani teammates Babar Azam, Mohammad Amir and Asif Ali, who are also part of the 18-member Vancouver Knights squad. Azam is the T20I captain of Pakistan’s national squad and will play under Rizwan’s leadership for the first time.
The Canadian domestic league will also feature other international stars such as Afghanistan’s Mohammad Nabi, Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, West Indian cricketers Sunil Narine, Carlos Brathwaite, Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan, Namibia’s David Wiese and Australian cricketer David Warner.
The Pakistani cricketers will be seen in action for the first time after their humiliating first-round exit from the recently concluded T20 World Cup 2024 in June. The South Asian team crashed out of the World Cup without qualifying for the second round of the tournament after, successive losses to minnows United States and India.
Squad:
Babar Azam, Asif Ali, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Rizwan, Jeremy Gordon, Rishiv Joshi, Sandeep Lamichhane, Dwaine Pretorius, Michael Rippon, Dipendra Singh Airee, Harsh Thaker, Ruben Trumpelmann, Paul van Meekeren, Sarmad Anwar, Mandeep Girdhar, Yuvraj Samra, Shubham Sharma, Ajayveer Singh
