When Saudi Arabia decides to target a sport, fans of that sport need to brace themselves for change. And that is surely on the horizon for cricket after reports emerged over the last 48 hours of a global T20 league, with both men’s and women’s competitions, and a Grand Slam tennis-style model featuring eight teams across four locations annually.
The league is to be backed by Saudi Arabia’s SRJ Sports Investments and is believed to be on the verge of receiving ICC approval.
Cricket fans will also read plenty into the timing of these leaked reports which come less than a week before the start of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL), the richest and most powerful franchise cricket league in the world. Rishabh Pant was signed for a record £2.54 million at the mega-auction in November, which funnily enough took place in Saudi Arabia!
Just like they did with golf via LIV and with the FIFA World Cup, not to mention plenty of other sports, the Saudis don’t just set their sights on joining the top table, they create their own and it will be fascinating to learn more about this venture over the coming days and weeks with the inevitable question of ‘who will be the first big name player to sign-up?’
Interestingly, the idea is believed to have come from Australian Neil Maxwell who manages Test captain Pat Cummins so plenty of people will be joining the dots and imagining that if an iconic player like that is involved then plenty of others will surely follow!
Plenty of other questions are out there, including just where will these four Grand Slam tournaments fit into an already heavily congested cricket calendar which makes rush-hour on the M25 motorway look like an open road in comparison. And where will they be played, with the final already said to be inked in for Saudi.
At present these are only reports and quotes from individuals speaking anonymously, but most expect this purely to be a softening up approach and laying the pitch before some major announcements follow.
The IPL has become the standard bearer for franchise cricket leagues across the globe with barely a week passing by without a new tournament springing up somewhere. There has also been an increase in ‘quirky’ franchise cricket leagues over the past 18 months with everything from The Big Cricket League, which gave emerging players the opportunity to play against marquee names, and the World Tennis Cricket League all joining the market.
With early information indicating that this new league will not go up against or look to clash with the likes of the IPL and BBL, it will be interesting to see how the Indian market responds over the coming weeks. The IPL is renowned for hyping up every game, no matter how much is at stake, but this time it could be the tournament and its place as the market leader which is suddenly in jeopardy.
It was only last month that The Hundred, English cricket’s answer to the IPL, sold off its franchises to the highest bidders and some of the figures surrounding world cricket are now mouthwatering.
Talking of English cricket, the suits at Lord’s were unimpressed when Allan Stanford landed his helicopter on the Nursery Ground and announced, with $20 million in cash, the prize money for his winner-takes-all clash in 2008. But those potential winnings will no doubt be viewed as pocked change and be dwarfed into insignificance by what SJR Sports Investments are set to announce.
IPL Remains The Front Runner
As for now, it is the IPL which is the world leader in T20 cricket and the event continues to grow while taking up an increasing part of the afore-mentioned cricket calendar. This year’s edition is the 18th and across two months of action will see ten teams take part in 70 group stage matches before three play-offs and a final.
Last year’s winners Kolkata Knight Riders, will get this IPL underway on 22 March at Eden Gardens when they host Royal Challengers Bengaluru in an evening fixture. RCB are a team who have plenty of followers not just in India but also across the globe, mainly due to the presence of Virat Kohli, the all-time leading run scorer in the competition, in their side.
But even with Kohli, who has appeared for RCB in each season of the IPL hitting eight centuries and over 8000 runs along the way, the franchise has never won the tournament! Indeed, they will begin this edition alongside only Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Super Giants as the only sides to have never got their hands on the trophy.
Of the three, RCB have the shortest odds of winning the 2025 IPL, but they still trail KKR, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chennai Super Kings and favourites Mumbai Indians in the outright betting markets. Rajasthan Royals, who famously won the inaugural competition in 2008 but have never been able to replicate that success, have the longest odds ahead of the start of this campaign.
Individual Players to Watch
The 2024 IPL saw familiar names at the top of the run scoring and wicket taking charts with Virat Kohli hitting 741 runs and Harshal Patel taking 24 wickets. The tournament is one which really celebrates the leading players in both disciplines with the run scoring leader presented with the Orange Cap and the top bowler the Purple Cap throughout the campaign.
2024 Top Run Scorers
Virat Kohli | 741 runs |
Ruturaj Gaikwad | 583 runs |
Riyan Parag | 573 runs |
Travis Head | 567 runs |
Sanju Samson | 531 runs |
2024 Top Wicket Takers
Harshal Patel | 24 wickets |
Varun Chakravarthy | 21 wickets |
Jasprit Bumrah | 20 wickets |
T.Natarajan | 19 wickets |
Harshit Rana | 19 wickets |
An interesting observation from both the 2024 top run scorers and top wicket takers is that there are nine Indian names with only Australia’s Travis Head coming in fourth place of the batters. Compared to recent years, this is something of an anomaly as in 2023 South Africa’s Faf du Plessis finished as the second highest run scorer, New Zealand’s Devon Conway the third highest run scorer, with Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan the joint second-top wicket taker.
And back in 2022, it was England’s Jos Buttler who won the Orange Cap with South Africa’s Quinton de Kock in third place. Equally, Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga finished in second place in the race for the Purple Cap with South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada in third.
Tips for the 2025 IPL
Travis Head has been one of the most consistent batters across all formats of cricket over the past 24 months. The 31 year old left-hander bats at the top of the order in T20s and brings an unorthodox but mightily effective attacking approach to the crease. With most betting providers, he is somewhere within the top seven to finish as the leading run scorer but rarely the favourite so there is plenty of value in backing him.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the only player in IPL history to win back to back Purple Caps and it would certainly be an impressive feat if Harshal Patel were to join him at the end of the 2025 season. But it is not an impossibility, particularly as Harshal is already the only player to have won the cap playing for different franchises and has joined last year’s runners-up Sunrisers Hyderabad for this campaign. Some operators have him at 16/1 to be the tournament’s top bowler, but after taking 89 wickets across the last four IPL seasons, he could be well worth selecting!
Tom Gibson
Tom Gibson, 33, possesses a keen interest in cricket combined with expertise in betting. Based in Newcastle, he is well-acquainted with the dynamics of the game and the betting world. With numerous years analyzing cricket matches and odds, Tom offers a unique perspective on the intersection of the sport and betting strategies