Former West Indies youth player and current Jamaica Tallawahs all-rounder, Steven Jacobs is among three Guyana-born and 21 West Indians picked in the inaugural draft of the Global T20 Canada.
Jacobs, 29, who has an economy rate of under seven and is a handy batsman down the order has been in the Guyana Amazon Warriors line up for the past few years before being drafted into the Tallawahs side for the upcoming Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
The young Guyanese was picked up for the Vancouver Knights which will see him alongside his countryman, Jeremy Gordon who plays for Canada but has represented Guyana at the senior level while a third Guyanese native, Dilon Heyliger was drafted by the Montreal Tigers.
Jacobs and Gordon will feature in Knights line up which has the likes of world renowned T20 stars, Chris Gayle and Andre Russell along with Evin Lewis, Chadwick Walton and Sheldon Cottrell.
Heyliger’s team mates will be mystery spinner and now belligerent opener, Sunil Narine and Denesh Ramdin as well as Barbados born, Nicholas Kirton who represented West Indies at the Under-19 level. Also featuring in the squads are two-time world T20 winning captain, Darren Sammy, Kieron Pollard, Kesrick Williams, Johnson Charles, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Fidel Edwards, Rayad Emrit and Tion Webster.
Former West Indies coach, Phil Simmons, will mentor the Toronto Nationals while Jamaican Coach, Donovan Miller, will head the Vancouver Knights.
Waqar Younis takes over Winnipeg Eagles, Tom Moody heads Montreal Tigers and
Mohammad Akram is with the Edmonton Royals.
The inaugural month-long competition will begin on June 28 and feature six teams, with the five Canadian sides joined by a Cricket West Indies representative team, consisting entirely of players from the Caribbean.
The league will comprise 22 matches culminating in playoffs and the championship match on July 16. All contests will take place at Maple Leaf Cricket Club, a cricket-specific facility just north of Toronto that will be expanded to a capacity of 7,000 seats.
Squads:
Toronto Nationals: Darren Sammy [marquee player], Steven Smith [marquee player], Kieron Pollard, Kamran Akmal, Hussain Talat, Ruman Rias, Nikhil Dutta, Johnson Charles, Kesrick Williams, Naveed Ahmed, Nazakat Khan, Farhan Malik, Nitesh Kumar, Usama Mir, Rohan Mustafa, Muhammad Umair Ghani
Vancouver Knights: Chris Gayle [marquee player], Andre Russell [marquee player], Evin Lewis, Tim Southee, Chadwick Walton, Fawad Ahmed, Babar Hayat, Sheldon Cottrell, Saad Bin Zafar, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Srimantha Wijeratne, Kamau Leverock, Steven Jacobs, Hiral Patel, Rassie Van Der Dussen, and Jeremy Gordon
Winnipeg Hawks: Dwayne Bravo [marquee player], David Miller [marquee player], David Warner, Lendl Simmons, Darren Bravo, Fidel Edwards, Rayad Emrit, Ben McDermott, Ali Khan, Hamza Tariq, Junaid Siddique, Tion Webster, Rizwan Cheema, Hiral Patel, Mark Deyal and Kyle Phillip
Montreal Tigers: Lasith Malinga [marquee player], Sunil Narine [marquee player], Thisara Perera, Mohammad Hafeez, Denesh Ramdin, Sandeep Lamichhane, Sikandar Raza, Dasun Shanaka, Isuru Udana, George Worker, Najibullah Zadran, Cecil Pervez, Mohammad Ibrahim Khaleel, Dilon Heyliger, Nicholas Kirton and Rayyankhan Pathan
Edmonton Royals: Shahid Afridi [marquee player], Chris Lynn [marquee player], Luke Ronchi, Mohammed Irfan, Sohail Tanvir, Christiaan Jonker, Wayne Parnell, Asif Ali, Hasan Khan, Agha Salman, Shaiman Anwar, Anmar Khalid, Satsimranjit Dhindsa, Ahmed Raza, Simon Pervez and Abraash Khan
