Masakadza to play in US Masters T10 league

FORMER Zimbabwe international cricket captain, Hamilton Masakadza is set to join other legends of the game in the inaugural US Masters T10 league which gets underway at Lauderhill, Florida, United States of America (USA) today.

Masakadza, who is also director of cricket at Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) is the only Chevrons legend who will take part in the league.
A total of six teams will compete for the prestigious title. The tournament starts today and ends on August 27.

Masakadza, former Chevrons top order batter, is part of the Atlanta Fire team which has some big names from the yesteryear generation of world cricket. This will not be his first appearance in a T10 league having taken part in the recently ended Zim Cyber City Zim Afro T10 league which was hosted in Harare last month.

Some of the big names that Masakadza will be sharing the changing room with at Atlanta Fire are Robin Uthappa, Grant Elliot, David Hussey and Lendl Simmons among others.

The league has attracted a lot of big names. Some of the other legends that are set to compete for the top honours include the likes of Chris Gayle, Makhaya Ntini, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Mohammed Hafeez and Ross Taylor.

The 40-year-old Masakadza played over 300 matches for Zimbabwe across all formats, scoring 10 centuries (five ODIs and five Test centuries). In the 2000-2001 season, as a schoolboy, he set the record of being the youngest batter ever to score a century on his Test debut. At the time, he was 17 years old and the century came against the West Indies. His record was later broken by Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful.
US Masters T10 league teams

Atlanta Fire: Robin Uthappa, David Hussey, Lendl Simmons, Muhammad Irfan, Dwayne Smith, Farhad Raza, Hammad Azam, Chaturanga De Silva, Elias Sunny, Nasir Hossain, Kamrul Islam, Junaid Siddique, Grant Elliot, Amila Aponso, Hamilton Masakada, S Sreesanth

California Knights: Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan, Mohammad Kaif, Aaron Finch, Jacques Kallis, Ricardo Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Ben Laughlin, Peter Siddle, Ashley Nurse, Rusty Theron, Anureet Singh, Pawan Suyal, Devendra Bishoo, Jesal Karia, Sudeep Tyagi.

Morrisville Unity: Chris Gayle, Kevin O’Brien, Parthiv Patel, Corey Anderson, Rahul Sharma, Calvin Savage, Parvinder Awana, Andries Gous, Najaf Shah, Harbhajan Singh, Angelo Perera, Dane Piedt, Vikas Tokas, Dilshan Munaweera, Nuwan Kulasekara, Makhaya Ntini.

New Jersey Legends: Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Liam Plunkett, Albie Morkel, Naman Ojha, Jesse Ryder, Chris Barnwell, Stuart Binny, RP Singh, Bipul Sharma, Craig Mcmillan, Tim Ambrose, Rajesh Bishnoi, Abhimanyu Mithun, Monty Panesar.

New York Warriors: Shahid Afridi, Misbah-ul-Haq, Johan Botha, Kamran Akmal, TM Dilshan, Jonathan Carter, Umaid Asif, Sohail Khan, Murali Vijay, Jerome Taylor, William Perkins, Abdur Rehman, Munaf Patel, Cody Chetty, Chamara Kapugedera, Dhammika Prasad.

Texas Chargers: Ben Dunk, Mohammed Hafeez, Ross Taylor, Isuru Udana, Thissara Perera, Neil Broom, Fidel Edwards, Umar Gul, Upul Tharanga, Praghyan Ojha, Jeevan Mendis, Siddharth Trivedi, Phil Mustard, Noor Ali Zadran, Praveen Kumar, Paul Adams. – @brandon_malvin.