The Circus You Missed
Global T20 Canada draft just happened yesterday. There wasn’t much going on until the comedy began. It was pretty stock standard while the Full Member Draft picks were going on. There are some really high profile overseas picks this time around. Teams seem to have found some good cash on offer to provide these high quality signings. Marcus Stoinis, Sunil Narine, Shakib Al Hasan, David Warner, Shaheen Afridi, Babar Azam are some of the names who will grace Canadian shores this time around. It will be a great opportunity for those in the local circuit that make something out of the experience.
The first dose of comedy happened when the Associate Rounds were underway. Bangla Tigers Mississauga wanted to pick Farhan Khan from UAE as one of their Associate picks. Upon announcement, the player profile is shown on the screen. The following is the player profile that popped up and took everyone by surprise.
When asked to confirm by the host whether this is the player they wanted, Bangla Tigers owner Zaffir Yasin Chowdhury was quick to mention that the player they want is correct but the picture isn’t. It’s embarrassing for the league and the player in the picture who would’ve thought that they’d been picked for GT20 Season 4. As someone who is well known in the local cricket circuit, a bit of cross-referencing could’ve saved Farhan Khan (or FK as he’s known by those close to him) some blushes. The rest of the draft picks went ahead as expected until another blemish occurred with Brampton Wolves looking to pick Muhammad Jawad Ullah from UAE. His profile came up on the screen with the picture of UAE batter Alishan Sharafu. This is bound to happen when the draft is being conducted all the way in India with an offshore backend team while owners dialled in on video.
The real comedy was yet to come. This started when the Canadian player rounds began. This is the last eight rounds reserved to ensure that teams are constructed with at least eight local players in their full squad. As revealed about a week prior by Tamarind Tree Media, the player registration portal introduced by GT20 was just for show. The players who can be selected by franchises were preselected by Cricket Canada without providing any background on these players.
Every time a franchise was called to announce their local pick, they looked dumbfounded. All franchise except for Surrey Jaguars had pre-signed their marquee local players. Surrey Jaguars were left with only one option in Navneet Dhaliwal and the owner was witty with his remark by mentioning “I guess I don’t have any other choice”. Rayyan Pathan was the last pick any franchise seemed confident that they wanted the player. For the rest of the remaining five rounds, the same list of players kept being recycled as the mandate from Cricket Canada was to ensure all those players get a team. No franchise had any clear plan on who they were going to pick. These rounds were just a display of the owners looking at their screen confused on which name to bet on.
When Surrey Jaguars picked Uday Bhagwan Singh and the host asked the owner to confirm his pick, the remark of “I don’t about his picture but I guess that is him” tells you everything that you need to know. The owners and franchises have absolutely no clue who they are picking as Cricket Canada force upon them a set group of players like your parents would force you to eat your meals on time as a kid. As player it’s disheartening and equally embarrassing to be put through this experience in your own local T20 league. Bangla Tigers Mississauga even opted to skip a round and “pick when everyone has completed their picks”. Brampton Wolves and Surrey Jaguars also chose to ask for extension with their picks which suggests they were awaiting information from someone in Canada to decide who to take a punt on from the list of unknowns.
Vancouver Knights had wanted to upgrade Yuvraj Samra from the U19 category but wasn’t allowed to do as Cricket Canada had preselected the players who can be selected in those initial rounds. It’s a circus of many dimensions and one that will never cease to disappoint you. Majority of the names in the list chosen by Cricket Canada doesn’t include players who have previously been part of the GT20 or have performed admirably in local T20s. The list is also players from Punjabi background with a greater emphasis on those from British Columbia and Alberta – those who now retain massive political prowess within Cricket Canada. It begs the question whether any other diaspora or ethnicity even appear on the cultural identification list for players in Canada. Maybe a quick survey outside Brampton can be conducted by one of those telemarking companies. Defending National Champions, Quebec, were awarded with a few picks in the list such as Ravinder Reddy and Padam Joshi. It rounded up what was an hour of absolute comedy while majority of these picks were confirmed without any picture associated with the player. Even as a local player if you didn’t know who half of these guys are, you couldn’t be blamed for it.
The final nail in the coffin in this circus was when Bangla Tigers Mississauga made a social media graphic with their local picks. Having no knowledge on the “Tajinder (Tejinder) Singh” they had picked in the draft, the graphic was made with a picture of Tajinder Dhillon. For context, Tajinder Dhillon was a local player selected by San Francisco Unicorns in the first season of Major League Cricket. He’s also an ex First Class Cricketer from Punjab who is predominantly a batter. The player picked by Bangla Tigers Mississauga is Tejinder Singh from Alberta who is a seam bowler. Tejinder was recently announced as a travelling reserve in the initial Canada World Cup squad but was subsequently dropped from the final squad as he was ineligible to be picked. With the season set to bowl off soon and a rich history in players coming and going from the tournament without any prior announcement, it’s going to be another season of interesting scenarios. Watch this space.
