2LT National News

Road Safety World Series: Pietersen to lead England Legends

Feb 26, 2021

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], February 26 (ANI): Former skipper Kevin Pietersen will lead England Legends in the upcoming Road Safety World Series scheduled to start at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in Raipur from March 5.

Bangladesh Legends, who have been included as a replacement for the Australian Legends, will see former skipper Khaled Mahmud leading the side in the showpiece event.

Matthew Hoggard, Owais Shah, Monty Panesar, Nick Crompton are some of the other key members of the England Legends squad.

Bangladesh Legends have Nafees Iqbal, Abdur Razzaq, and Mohd Rafique among others in their ranks.

The England team is scheduled to land in Raipur from London via Delhi on Friday whereas the Bangladesh team is scheduled to reach Raipur from Dhaka via Kolkata on Saturday.

Indian legends will take on their Bangladesh counterparts in the first match of the tournament on March 5. England legends will open their account against Bangladesh on March 7.

England Legends: Kevin Pietersen, Owais Shah, Philip Mustard, Monty Panesar, Nick Crompton, Kabir Al, Sajid Mahmood, James Tredwell, Chris Schofield, Jonathan Trott, Ryan Sidebottom, Usman Afzaal, Matthew Hoggard, James Tindall.

Bangladesh Legends: Khaled Mahmud, Nafees Iqbal, Mohd Rafique, Abdur Razzaq, Khalid Mashud, Hanan Sarkar, Javed Omar, Rajin Saleh, Mehrab Hossain, Aftab Ahmed, Alamgir Kabir. MD.Sharif Mushfiqur Rahman, Mamoon Rashid.

An array of stars including Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Brian Lara, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Muttiah Muralitharan, and many more legends of six cricket playing nations — England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh and host India — will be back on the field to recreate the magic of old in the annual T20 cricket tournament, organised to create awareness towards road safety in the country.

The newly-built 65,000 capacity stadium in Raipur will be open for 50 per cent attendance as per the SOP issued by the Central Government. Earlier, Australia legends pulled out of the tournament citing inability to travel due to strict COVID-19 restrictions Down Under.

The Road Safety World Series is an initiative by the Road Safety Cell of Maharashtra in association with Professional Management Group (PMG) spearheaded by Sunil Gavaskar as the Commissioner of the Series and Sachin Tendulkar is the brand ambassador of the league.

Education technology platform Unacademy is the title sponsor and Viacom18 is the broadcast partner of the league.

The first edition of the series had to be called off after four games on March 11 last year due to the Covid-19 situation worldwide. (ANI)