LANCASHIRE hope their new Indian Premier League partners can help the English cricket county's Hundred franchise rival football giants Manchester United and Manchester City in "the UK's number one sporting city".
RPSG Group, the owners of Lucknow Super Giants, have agreed to pay around £80 million for a 70 per cent share in Manchester Originals.
It is one of several lucrative deals across the eight Hundred franchises that are set to bring in more than £520m into English domestic cricket -- including an immediate £25m for Lancashire.
The Hundred has proved controversial, with many county cricket fans angry at the way the tournament deprives their side of key players at the height of the season.
The terms of the RPSG deal are yet to be finalised, but Lancashire chief executive Daniel Gidney said he is excited about the potential impact of the new investment at the Old Trafford club, just down the road from United's ground of the same name.
"We've talked about Manchester being probably the UK's number one sporting city," Gidney said. "Manchester is a global sporting capital... a powerhouse.
"We want the Manchester franchise in the Hundred to become the third-biggest sports team in Manchester and challenge those two sports teams in Manchester (United and City).
'Incredibly exciting'
"That is the scale and level of the ambition of both of us as partners.... This is something that is incredibly exciting for us and that is why we wanted to partner with an IPL team and we always have done.
"You've got a 1.4 billion population of people (in India) who adore cricket. Why wouldn't we want to inject a bit of that energy and passion into Manchester and Lancashire?"
Shashwat Goenka, vice-chairman of RPSG, admitted his group had initially wanted a stake in the Lord's-based London Spirit side before losing out to a mammoth bid from a Silicon Valley consortium, which offered a reported £145m for a 49 per cent stake.
Shashwat Goenka (Photo: LinkedIn)
He said he was glad to have joined forces with Lancashire instead.
"While we did bid aggressively for Lord's, we stopped at a point and I'm extremely happy with Manchester," he said via a video link from Kolkata. "We are very excited with this investment. It's going to be a formidable partnership,"
"From a cricketing standpoint, it is one of the only sports in the world that has the kind of viewership that it does globally across race, caste, culture, religion, any of that. Manchester is a global sporting hub... one of the top five sporting cities across the world."
England opening batsman Phil Salt, who plays for Lancashire and the Originals and also has IPL experience, said the new cash injection could make the Hundred become world cricket's premier franchise competition.
"At the inception of the IPL, I suppose their ambition was to bring the world's best tournament that we've ever seen and that's exactly what they've done," he said.
"We sit here today knowing full well that our ambition is to bring the world's best cricket to Manchester."
(AFP)
Chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani along with his wife Nita Mukesh Ambani (Photo: Getty Images)