West Indies cricket legend Vivian Richard can be seen in Pakistan Super League (PSL) as Quetta Gladiators franchise owners are in talks with Caribbean great for joining the team as mentor. Quetta team owner Nadeem Omar has said in an interview to GEO TV that they are looking to rope in two-time cricket world cup champion Sir Viv Richards to mentor the side in 2016 PSL.
Nadeem Omar said, “Yes, we are in talks with Viv (Richards). Talks are in final stages and an announcement in this regard will be made soon. Richards is a great name, he’s the best choice for us to have as team Quetta’s mentor.”
Sir Vivian Richards represented West Indies in 121 tests and 187 One-Day Internationals. He was a part of world cup winning Caribbean strong line-up. Omar believes that Richards association with the team will help the players to get motivated all the time and experience of legendary cricketer will definitely help the side.
He’s also mentioned that their target is to let world cricket know about Quetta and build strong fan following of the team. They want people to recognize Quetta city by the team. Nadeem also added the limitation of including local city players in the Quetta squad for HBL PSL 2016. Asghar and Bismillah are the two local Quetta players in Gladiators squad.
“When you’ll bring people of Quetta to limelight then things will improve. Our aim at the moment is to put Quetta on cricketing map. I believe that the city and the province need morale boost up and we’ll use Quetta Gladiators to highlight this city as top power in cricketing world. There’s no dearth of talent in Balochistan. We’ll do our best to unearth the talent and transform it into match winners,” Omar said.
“We had two players from Quetta, one was Bismillah and one was Asghar. We could avail only one of them so we have Bismillah Khan in our squad,” he added.
Nadeem Omar carried on his focus to broadcast the live stream of Quetta Gladiators matches in schools and colleges of Balochistan to get youngsters involved in it. He said, “We’ll do live streaming of all Quetta matches during PSL in schools, colleges and universities of Balochistan, so that fans can get fully involved and are taken on-board.”
The first season of HBL Pakistan Super League is starting from 4th of February and in the opening match of tournament, Quetta Gladiators will be up against Islamabad United at Dubai International Stadium.