Global T20 Canada: Russell, Gayle, Harbhajan, Afridi among marquee names drafted

Andre Russell, Chris Gayle, Harbhajan Singh, Shahid Afridi and Shakib Al Hasan are among some of the marquee players, who were drafted on Wednesday for the upcoming Global T20 Canada 2023.

The league, which returns for the first time in four seasons, will be played from July 20 to August 6 in Brampton, Ontario. It will feature six franchises playing 25 matches over the course of 18 days.

Winnipeg Hawks and Edmonton Royals, two franchises who were there in the tournament in 2019, no longer exist and are now replaced by Surrey Jaguars and Mississauga Panthers respectively.

Each squad consists of 16 players from full and ICC associate member nations. These squads include six international players including two marquee stars, four players from Associate Nations and six Canadian cricketers.

Shakib, Russell and Chris Lynn will turn up for Montreal Tigers. Harbhajan will headline for Brampton Wolves this season along with former New Zealand all-rounder Colin de Grandhomme. Toronto Nationals will feature Afridi, along with New Zealand's reliable big hitter Colin Munro while Mississauga Panthers will feature Gayle and Shoaib Malik.

Surrey will have hard-hitting right-handed opener Alex Hales along with Pakistan's top-order batsman Iftikhar Ahamed while Vancouver Knights have named Pakistan's wicket-keeper batsman Mohammed Rizwan and South Africa's swashbuckling batter Rassie van der Dussen as their marquee picks for this edition.

The tournament will happen at a time when the USA will be launching the inaugural edition of Major League Cricket (MLC), set to be played in Texas. It means that in July, two more T20 leagues will be added to the already-crowded cricketing calendar.

Squads for Global T20 Canada 2023:

Brampton Wolves: Harbhajan Singh, Colin De Grandhomme, Tim Southee, Mark Sinclair Chapman, Usama Mir, Hussain Talat, Usman Khan, Logan Van Beek, Jan Nicolaas Frylinck, Max O Dowd, Jeremy Gordon, Aaron Johnson, Rizwan Cheema, Shahid Ahamdzai, Rishiv Joshi, Gurpal Singh Sandhu

Montreal Tigers: Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hassan, Chris Lynn, Sherfane Rutherford, Carlos Brathwaite, Muhammad Abbas Afridi, Zahir Khan, Muhammad Waseem, Akif Raja, Aayan Khan, Dipendra Airee, Kaleem Sana, Srimantha Wijeratne, Matthew Spoors, Bupendra Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Anoop Chima

Mississauga Panthers: Shoaib Malik, Chris Gayle, Azam Khan, James Neesham, Cameron Scott Delport, Shahnawaz Dahani, Zahoor Khan, Tom Cooper, Cecil Pervez, Jaskarandeep Singh Buttar, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nikhil Dutta, Shreyas Movva, Praveen Kumar, Mihir Patel, Eathan Gibson

Surrey Jaguars: Alex Hales, Iftikhar Ahmed, Jason Behrendorff, Litton Kumar Das, Karim Janat, Mohammad Haris, Sandeep Lamichhane, Ayaan Khan, Jatinder Singh, Bernard Scholtz, Paragat Singh, Dilon Heyliger, Ammar Khalid, Sunny Matharu, Sheel Patel, Kairav Sharma

Toronto Nationals: Colin Munro, Shahid Afridi, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Zaman Khan, Saim Ayub, Abdullah Shafique, Hamza Tariq, Gerhard Erasmus, Johannes Jonathan Smit, Farhan Malik, Saad Bin Zafar, Nicholas Kirton, Armaan Kapoor, Sarmad Anwar, Rommel Shahzad, Udhaya Bhagwan

Vancouver Knights: Mohammad Rizwan, Rassie Van Der Dussen, Naveen Ul Haq, Reeza Raphael Hendricks, Corbin Bosch, Najibullah Zadran, Junaid Siddiqui, Vriitya Aravind, Karthik Meiyappan, Ruben Trumplemann, Ravinderpal Singh, Harsh Thaker, Rayyan Pathan, Nawab Singh, Muhammad Kamal, Kanwar Tathgur