{"id":584176,"date":"2026-05-14T20:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584176\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T20:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:05:13","slug":"dunes-t20-saudi-arabia-franchise-league-to-launch-in-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584176\/","title":{"rendered":"Dunes T20: Saudi Arabia franchise league to launch in October"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new men’s T20 tournament is set to launch in Saudi Arabia later this year with organisers confident it will go ahead despite the Iran war.<\/p>\n

The Dunes T20 is scheduled be played in October and represents the Gulf state’s first official foray into professional cricket.<\/p>\n

The league is being organised following an agreement between the Saudi Arabia Cricket Federation, an entertainment company called the South Asian Network, and two sports agencies – Unique Sports and Prolithic.<\/p>\n

The state of Saudi Arabia increasing its profile in cricket has long been mooted, but the Dunes T20 is not connected to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has previously hosted the Indian Premier League auction and last year a partnership with the ILT20, the United Arab Emirates’ franchise league, was announced. Saudi oil company Aramco is a major sponsor of the International Cricket Council.<\/p>\n

PIF is cutting back on some of its overseas sporting investments<\/a>, such as LIV Golf, as part of a strategic restructuring.<\/p>\n

Franchise regulars such as Alex Hales, Jason Roy, James Vince and Moeen Ali are understood to be among the English players that will be sounded out about taking part.<\/p>\n

Former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh has been signed up as an ambassador for the league with the 4,000 capacity Taif Cricket Ground near Jeddah earmarked as the likely venue.<\/p>\n

Sources have told BBC Sport the six-team league is seen as an early proactive step towards establishing a major franchise tournament in Saudi Arabia aimed at the world’s top players in the future.<\/p>\n

Prospective franchise owners are being encouraged to see the event as a vehicle for expanding business relations with Saudi Arabia, outside of cricket, with interest anticipated from the United States, India, United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

A women’s T20 tournament in Saudi Arabia featuring the game’s top players – the Women’s World T20 Challenge – scheduled for later this year was recently postponed until 2027<\/a> due to concerns over safety in light of the conflict in Iran.<\/p>\n

However, it is believed that players canvassed by the Dunes T20 have indicated a willingness to travel to the country provided tensions in the Middle East do not escalate further.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia’s men’s team are currently 32nd in the International Cricket Council’s T20 rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new men’s T20 tournament is set to launch in Saudi Arabia later this year with organisers confident…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-584176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}