Fawad Ahmed returns to TKR

FAWAD AHMED, the Pakistani-born Australian leg-spinner, will return to the Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) for the 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPL), which is expected to take place in TT from August 18 to September 10.

The CPL draft show was aired on the CPL’s Facebook page on Monday, where the six squads (TKR, defending champs Barbados Tridents, St Kitts/Nevis Patriots, Guyana Amazon Warriors, Jamaica Tallawahs and St Lucia Zouks) were revealed.

The 38-year-old Ahmed, who played for the Zouks in the 2019 edition, took a tournament-leading 22 wickets in 2018 for the victorious TKR outfit.

He was signed by the TKR for this year’s episode, along with New Zealand wicket-keeper Tim Seifert and West Indies Under-19 fast bowler Jayden Seales.

Another veteran leg-spinner, 48-year-old Pravin Tambe, will become the first Indian player to feature in the CPL as he was one of three players drafted by the TKR. The others are pacer Anderson Phillip, who was part of the 2018 and 2019 TKR outfits, and Pakistani-born Zimbabwean-batsman Sikandar Raza.

Eleven players were retained by the TKR – the Bravo brothers Dwayne and Darren, WI T20 captain Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Lendl Simmons, Khary Pierre, Amir Jangoo, Tion Webster, Akeal Hosein, New Zealand’s Colin Munro and Pakistan-born US fast bowler Ali Khan.

From the 2019 TKR team, wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin will feature for the Patriots, while all-rounder Mark Deyal was drafted by the Zouks. Pakistan’s Mohammad Hasnain, New Zealand’s Jimmy Neesham and Sri Lanka’s Seekkuge Prasanna were not chosen by any of the six CPL teams.