MUMBAI: Star Sports has inked a deal with Cricket Canada to telecast the Global T20 Canada League in India, a source close to the development told Indiantelevision.com. The network will broadcast the matches on Star Sports 1 and Star Sports 1 HD. Fans can also tune in to the action on Star India’s OTT Hotstar. The Global T20 Cricket League, which kick starts on Thursday, will be aired in Canada on Asian Television Network (ATN). Global T20 Canada has also announced TV deals in other countries like the UK (FreeSports), Australia (Fox Sports), Pakistan (Geo Sports), Middle East (Orbit Showtime Network), Bangladesh (Ghazi TV) and the Caribbean (Sportsmax). The 22-match tournament opens with the Toronto Nationals taking on the Vancouver Knights and runs through July 15. Toronto and Vancouver will be joined by the Winnipeg Hawks, Edmonton Royals, Montreal Tigers and a Cricket West Indies B team. All matches will be played at the Maple Leaf Cricket Club in King City, Ont., just north of Toronto. The Global T20 Canada is the brainchild of the Mercuri Group, an India-based media company whose affiliate Mercuri Canada has signed a 25-year deal with Cricket Canada. The tournament has drawn 96 players from some 20 countries including Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Shahid Afridi, Daren Sammy, Lasith Malinga, Steve Smith, Sunil Narine, David Miller and Dwayne Bravo. In an official statement Global T20 Canada website, the league’s chairman Gurmeet Singh said, “The schedule reveal is another symbolic step towards bringing the excitement and spectacle of pro Twenty20 cricket to Canada, and making cricket and Canadian sport history. With the calibre of talent coming to Canada, fans will see top international stars in every match from the opener through to the final.” Former Australian skipper Smith, along with vice-captain David Warner, made headlines recently for their role in a ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. They were given 12-month bans by Cricket Australia but are allowed to play abroad. Smith will play for Toronto while Warner was drafted by Winnipeg. Also Read: Star to share select IPL matches with DD with an hour's delay Star India beats Sony, Jio to win media rights for BCCI’s home matches<doc-sep>Cricket Canada has high hopes for the Global T20 Canada tournament. “I believe this is a beginning of building Canada as a cricket nation,” said Canada Cricket president Ranjit Saini. The Mercuri Group, an India-based media and talent management company that is the driving force behind the Canadian event, is looking to find a profitable window in the crowded cricket calendar. The inaugural six-team tournament opens Thursday and runs through July 15 with 96 cricketers drawn from around the globe and across Canada. With broadcast partners only announced Tuesday, it feels like organizers have arrived at the starting line huffing and puffing. “We’re down the rabbit-hole now,” tournament director Jason Harper said. “For us there’s a market. There’s interest by the international cricket community, there’s interest by the players and there’s interest by the fans here. Why not? It’s a fact-finding mission. We’ll see how it goes. It will develop.” A diplomatic Saini said he was “generally satisfied” by the arrangements to date, saying they would improve in time. The Toronto Nationals, Montreal Tigers, Winnipeg Hawks, Edmonton Royals and Vancouver Knights join a Cricket West Indies B team at the tournament, which will take place at the Maple Leaf Cricket Club north of Toronto in King City. West Indies’ Darren Sammy (Toronto), Chris Gayle (Vancouver) and Dwayne Bravo (Winnipeg), Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga (Montreal) and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi (Edmonton) offer star power as team captains. Disgraced former Australia captain Steve Smith (Toronto) and vice-captain David Warner (Winnipeg) offer some sizzle as they return to action after a ball-tampering scandal in South Africa that earned them one-year bans from Cricket Australia — although they are allowed to play club cricket overseas. Each of the five domestic teams features four Canadians. The number of Canadians is expected to rise in future years with Mercuri helping with the training and development of local talent. Canadians who want to watch will have to sign up for CBN, one of Asian Television Network’s 55 channels here, or watch online via Hotstar. There are also broadcast partners in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Middle East, Caribbean, Australia and United Kingdom. A normal T20 match lasts between three and 3 1/2 hours — “about the same time as a baseball game but there’s a lot more happening during the T20 game,” Harper notes. “It’s vibrant, it’s loud, it’s colourful, it’s consistent action,” he said. “There could be a six, a four, a wicket at any moment. Because in those 120 balls the batting team is trying to get as many runs as possible and in those 120 balls the bowling team is trying to get as many wickets as possible … That adds an element of theatre to the game — that big finish.” Tickets start at $30 and go all the way up to $22,124 for an air-conditioned box that seats 20. A season pass for one will cost you from $475 to $1,555 depending on what package you pick. Saini said the Canadian governing body had been looking for this kind of project the last 10 years. Cricket Canada met with Mercuri officials during the 2011 Cricket World Cup in India with Mercuri coming back to them last year. A November meeting in New York produced a memorandum of understanding that turned into a 25-year licensing agreement. Cricket Canada gets a lump payment each year in addition to Mercuri’s player development help. The five Canadian teams each have a salary budget of $550,000 (U.S.) with individual pay ranging from $100,000 to $3,000 depending on where the player was drafted. Cricket West Indies is taking care of its own squad. Nikhil Dutta is the highest-drafted Canadian player in the league at $25,000. Compare those figures to the elite Indian Premier League, whose teams have a $17-million salary cap. Asked why Mercuri choose Canada, Harper said: “Look at the demographics. Add to that the popularity of T20, “proven to be tailored for television, the most exciting version of the game,” according to Harper. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... “We sat with Cricket Canada and they were confident, they convinced us that we have enough fans here, we have enough people here who we can build a tournament around. Because you can’t start a business without a market.” Harper, who has soccer experience with CONCACAF, previously was operations manager and CEO of the Barbados Tridents cricket team in the Caribbean Premier League. Married to a Canadian, he moved to Toronto in December 2015 from the Cayman Islands. The Canadian teams are coached by Jamaica’s Donovan Miller (Vancouver), Trinidad’s Phil Simmons (Toronto), Pakistan’s Waqar Younis (Winnipeg), Australia’s Tom Moody (Montreal) and Pakistan’s Mohammad Akram (Edmonton).<doc-sep>Steve Smith and David Warner will return to playing duties in the Global T20 Canada. LITTLE more than three months ago Steve Smith was Australia’s captain and David Warner was his deputy. On Friday (AEST), while the team he once led rues a winless tour of England, Smith will walk out to bat in the unfamiliar terrain of rural Canada. He will be playing in King City, 50 kilometres north of Toronto, at Maple Leaf Cricket Club in front of 7000 fans packed into temporary stands. A day later, Warner will do the same. After ball tampering saga, Warner and Smith are back playing cricket. This time they represent Canadian teams in the Global T20 league Source: AFP It will be the first time each man has played competitive cricket since Cricket Australia hit them with 12 month bans for their roles in the Cape Town ball-tampering saga. The two have signed up to play in the inaugural Global T20 Canada league, taking their first steps in what local organisers have dubbed the “redemption tour.” It’s an opportunity for the pair to reconnect with the game away from the scrutiny of home and a chance to give back to the sport too. According to tournament director Jason Harper, Smith is donating his playing fees to grassroots cricket, while both men will be serving as tournament ambassadors helping to promote the game in the country. While cricket and Canada are hardly synonymous, North America will hardly be the backwaters of the game for the next month. There are some seriously big names playing in the GT20C and you can watch it live on Fox Sports. Playing for the Toronto Nationals, Smith will have two-time World Twenty20 winning captain Darren Sammy for a skipper and players of the calibre of Kieron Pollard, Kamran Akmal and Johnson Charles for teammates. Former Aussie captain Smith will play alongside Chris Gayle Source: AFP His coach, Phil Simmons, led the West Indies to glory in the 2016 World T20. He’ll take on the Vancouver Knights in his first match and their list features Chris Gayle, Andre Russell and Tim Southee. Warner will share a dressing room with compatriot Ben McDermott at the Winnipeg Hawks, where he will be captained by Dwayne Bravo and bat alongside Lendl Simmons, David Miller and Darren Bravo. His coach is Pakistani great Waqar Younis. Warner, Smith and McDermott aren’t the only Australians playing in Canada this month either, with Chris Lynn signed up to play for the Edmonton Royals and Fawad Ahmed for the Vancouver Knights. Find out everything you need to know in our Ultimate Guide. HOW TO WATCH Fox Sports will be broadcasting 18 of the 22 matches, starting with Smith’s Toronto against Gayle’s Vancouver on Friday at 6am. Watch the Global T20 Canada League Live and Exclusive in HD on FOX SPORTS. SIGN UP NOW > THE TOURNAMENT FORMAT All six teams will play each other in a round-robin stage. Each side will then play one more match in a second round which pits first against sixth, second against fifth and third against fourth. This will be followed by three playoff rounds. Playoff One (P1) features the top teams with the winner going straight through to the final. Playoff Two (P2) is a knockout match between third and fourth. Playoff Three pits the loser of P1 against the winner of P2 for a spot in the final. THE TEAMS Toronto Nationals Darren Sammy, Steve Smith, Kieron Pollard, Kamran Akmal, Hussain Talat, Rumman Raees, Nikhil Dutta, Johnson Charles, Kesrick Williams, Naveed Ahmad, Farhan Malik, Usama Mir, Rohan Mustafa, Nitish Kumar Montreal Tigers Lasith Malinga, Sunil Narine, Thisara Perera, Mohammad Hafeez, Denesh Ramdin, Sandeep Lamichhane, Sikandar Raza, Dusun Shanaka, Isuru Undana, George Worker, Najibullah Zandran, Cecil Pervez, Ibrahim Khaleel, Dillon Heyliger, Nicholas Kirton, Rayyan Pathan Edmonton Royals Shahid Afridi, Chris Lynn, Luke Ronchi, Mohammad Irfan, Sohail Tanvir, Christiaan Jonker, Wayne Parnell, Asif Ali, Khan Agha Salman, Shaiman Anwar, Satsimranjit Dhindsa, Ahmed Raza, Abraash Khan Vancouver Knights Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Evin Lewin, Tim Southee, Chadwick Walton, Fawad Ahmed, Babar Hayat, Sheldon Cottrell, Saad Bin Zafar, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Srimantha Wijeratne, Kamau Leverock, Steven Jacobs, Salman Nazar, Rassie van der Dussen, Jeremy Gordon Winnipeg Hawks Dwayne Bravo, David Miller, David Warner, Lendl Simmons, Darren Bravo, Fidel Edwards, Rayad Emrit, Ben McDermott, Ali Khan, Haza Tariq, Junaid Siddique, Tion Webster, Rizwan Cheema, Hiral Patel, Mark Deyal Cricket West Indies B Team Anthony Bramble, Fabian Allen, Alick Athanaze, Roland Cato, Justin Greaves, Derval Green, Kavem Hodge, Brandon King, Jeremiah Louis, Obed McCoy, Khary Pierre, Nicholas Pooran, Sherfane Rutherford, Shamar Springer FIXTURES FIRST ROUND Toronto Nationals vs. Vancouver Kings, 6:00am, June 29 Montreal Tigers vs. Winnipeg Hawks, 6:00am, June 30 Toronto Nationals vs. Edmonton Royals, 1:00am, July 1 Montreal Tigers vs. CWI B Team, 6:00am, July 1 Vancouver Knights vs. Winnipeg Hawks, 1:00am, July 2 Edmonton Royals vs. CWI B Team, 6:00am, July 2 Toronto Nationals vs. Winnipeg Hawks, 1:00am, July 3 Montreal Tigers vs. Vancouver Knights, 6:00am, July 3 Montreal Tigers vs. Edmonton Royals, 6:00am, July 05 Winnipeg Hawks vs. CWI B Team, 6:00am, July 06 Vancouver Knights vs. Edmonton Royals, 6:00am, July 07 Toronto Nationals vs. CWI B Team, 1:00am July 08 Winnipeg Hawks vs. Edmonton Royals, 6:00am, July 08 Vancouver Knights vs. CWI B Team, 1:00am, July 09 Toronto Nationals vs. Montreal Tigers, 6:00am, July 09 SECOND ROUND First v Sixth, 1:00am, July 11 Second v Fifth, 6:00am, July 11 Third v Fourth, 6:00am, July 12 PLAYOFFS Playoff One: First v Second (loser gets second chance), 1:00am, July 13 Playoff Two: Third v Fourth (loser eliminated), 6:00am, July 13 Playoff Three: Loser of P1 v winner of P2, 5:00am, July 15 Final: Winner of P1 v Winner of P3, 5:00am, July 16<doc-sep>PLAYING his first match in three months, Steve Smith has marked his cricket comeback with a fine half-century for the Toronto Nationals in the curtain raiser for the inaugural Global Canada T20 league. Having cost his side dearly with a dropped catch in the field, Smith scored 61 runs off 41 balls as Toronto looked to chase down the Vancouver Knights’ total of 4-227. The former Australian captain was stumped off the bowling of compatriot Fawad Ahmed in the 14th over, with the Nationals on track for victory at 3-151. The wicket ended a 91-run stand between Smith and Anton Devcich, who went on to hammer an unbeaten 92 off 44 to guide the Nationals to victory with four balls and six wickets to spare. Watch the Global T20 Canada League Live and Exclusive in HD on FOX SPORTS. SIGN UP NOW > SCROLL DOWN TO RE-LIVE BLOG Called to action in the first over after Hong Kong international Nizakat Khan (4) was bowled by New Zealand’s Tim Southee, Smith got off the mark with a crisp straight drive that cannoned into the non-striker’s end. However, for the most part the 29-year-old looked rusty in the early stages of his innings. Steve Smith looked rusty in the early stages of his innings. Source: AP Two of his first three boundaries came off edges and he only scored 27 runs off the first 25 balls. A crisp boundary through mid-off off the bowling of Andre Russell in the ninth over seemed to click Smith back into gear. Off the final 16 deliveries of his knock he helped himself to another five boundaries, including one six off Fawad. Smith’s dismissal was not enough to stop the Nationals with Devcich putting on a brutal display of power hitting. The Kiwi slogger helped himself to six sixes and 10 fours before captain Darren Sammy (22 off 10 not out) finished the match in style with a six off Canada’s Jeremy Gordon. Smith is three months into the 12-month ban imposed on him by Cricket Australia for his role in the Cape Town ball-tampering saga. Under the ban, Smith cannot represent Australia or play professional cricket for the country until March 2019. It was an eventful return to action for Smith, who cost his team dearly by dropping a skier off the bat of Evin Lewis in the first innings. On 47 at the time, Lewis mis-hit Kieron Pollard to long-on and was granted a reprieve by Smith. Having made good ground to get under the catch comfortably, the 29-year-old was unable to hold onto the swirling chance. Lewis went on to score 96 off 55, while Andre Russell battered an unbeaten 54 off 20. Vancouver Knights' Andre Russell hit six sixes. Source: AP The West Indian pair were brutal against an attack headlined by Kesrick Williams and Kieron Pollard. Lewis hit 10 sixes and five fours before holing out to Williams in the penultimate over. In the sheds until the 14th over, Russell made the most of his time in the middle, hitting six sixes and three fours. Earlier, Smith took a smart low catch at long-on to remove Chris Gayle (17) in the fourth over. READ MORE SMITH’S COMEBACK HITS THE SKIDS The match is being broadcast live on Fox Sports 507. TEAMS Toronto Nationals: Johnson Charles, Nizakat Khan, Steve Smith, Anton Devcich, Kieron Pollard, Nitish Kumar, Darren Sammy (captain) , Nikhil Dutta, Mohammad Umair Ghani, Naveed Ahmad, Kesrick Williams Vancouver Knights: Chris Gayle (captain), Evin Lewis, Chadwick Walton, Rassie van der Dussen, Babar Hayat, Andre Russell, Saad Bin Zafar, Tim Southee, Fawad Ahmed, Sheldon Cottrell, Jeremy Gordon RE-LIVE THE MATCH IN OUR LIVE BLOG BELOW Tap here if you cannot see the blog<doc-sep>
Cricket Canada president Ranjit Saini hopes the star-filled Global T20 tournament that begins on Thursday will help give the sport a big boost in the country. The inaugural six-team tournament in the Twenty20 format runs till 15 July with 96 cricketers drawn from around the globe and across Canada. The Toronto Nationals, Montreal Tigers, Winnipeg Hawks, Edmonton Royals and Vancouver Knights join a Cricket West Indies B team at the tournament, which will take place at the Maple Leaf Cricket Club north of Toronto in King City. Windies' Darren Sammy (Toronto), Chris Gayle (Vancouver) and Dwayne Bravo (Winnipeg), Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga (Montreal) and Pakistan's Shahid Afridi (Edmonton) offer star power as team captains. Former Australia captain Steve Smith (Toronto) and vice-captain David Warner (Winnipeg) return to action after a ball-tampering scandal in South Africa that earned them one-year bans from Cricket Australia — although they are allowed to play club cricket overseas. Each of the five domestic teams features four Canadians. The number of Canadians is expected to rise in future years. The Canadian teams are coached by Jamaica's Donovan Miller (Vancouver), Trinidad's Phil Simmons (Toronto), Pakistan's Waqar Younis (Winnipeg), Australia's Tom Moody (Montreal) and Pakistan's Mohammad Akram (Edmonton). Here is everything you need to know about when and where to watch the tournament live: When will Global T20 League Canada be held? The Global T20 league Canada match will be held from 28 June to 15 July 2018. Where will the matches be played? All the matches in the Global T20 League will be held at one venue: Maple Leaf Cricket Club, King City, Canada. Where can I watch the matches from the Global T20 League live on TV? You can watch the matches live on Star Sports 1 and Star Sports 1 HD. How to live stream Global T20 league Canada matches? The matches will be streamed online on Hotstar. Click here to find out more about the Global T20 League With inputs from AP