ILT20 CEO David White is looking to make the third edition of the tournament bigger and better than the previous ones. Apart from working on getting more people at the venues and offering better experiences to the people watching the games on screens, White is also determined to have class players onboard to make the ILT20 season 3 a massive hit.
Speaking with the Times of India, White said he is interested to have former India opener Shikhar Dhawan onboard. The latter recently announced his retirement from international and domestic cricket and will feature in the upcoming edition of the Legends League Cricket (LLC).
White said the ILT20 is interested in having Dhawan playing in the UAE and currently, they are navigating a way to get it done.
“Yep. I think that there’s been some inquiries in that direction. But that’s only happened in the last 24 hours. So I haven’t got anything to report on that, but there’s certainly interest,” White was quoted as saying by the leading Indian daily.
“But we’ve no idea of whether he’s going to carry on playing cricket of that standard or not, but as soon as we heard the news, we were making some enquiries, but we’ve had no more information so far. We are just trying to investigate whether he has retired fully from cricket or not. I’m not going to hide that there is an interest, of course,” he added.
‘Don’t want it to be Legends’ tournament’
White clarified that the ILT20 isn’t going to be a league of retired players ever and it focuses on having players of international class. But speaking of Dhawan, the tournament CEO said the former India batter is still of ‘international quality’.
“I think we’ve got to make it clear that this is an international style of tournament of a high profile. Shikhar Dhawan is different, he is still of international quality. We don’t want it to be a legends tournament. This is a high-standard international team, with nine international players, all of current IPL or international class, the majority of them or promising young players coming through. So, it’s not a retirement tournament at all,” White said.
“This is a high-level tournament. In fact, after the first two seasons of our league, some people who have played with us have been taken into the IPL later. Two really interesting examples are Jake Fraser McGurk, who played last year, and went on to IPL and the latest one is Jamie Smith. He made a Test hundred (against Sri Lanka) just the other day
“He played in it (ILT20) last year as well. So whilst we want current internationals or IPL players, it also is an opportunity for aspirant players to come through promising players to make their name. So, it’s a great opportunity. Some young UAE players have really stepped up and played well. It’s a great opportunity for the established and promising players. I really want to stress that this is a high-quality tournament of current international and IPL players,” he added.
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