ESPN Gain Sri Lanka Premier League Twenty20 Rights

Sports broadcaster, ESPN has secured rights to broadcast the first season of the inaugural Mahindra Sri Lanka Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament.

ESPN will show the competition in the UK and Ireland on TV, plus online highlights. It will be shown solely online in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Twenty20 competition will feature a total of 24 matches as seven teams representing the provinces of Sri Lanka compete in a round robin group stage, semi-finals and final between Saturday 11th and Friday 31st August.

ESPN UK’s live coverage of the Mahindra Sri Lanka Premier League starts on Saturday August 11 with Basnahira Cricket Dundee v Kandurata Warriors live at 3.30pm, including both semi-finals on 28th and 29th August, and the final on 31st August.

The Mahindra SLPL is set to feature some of cricket’s biggest names – legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan will appear alongside fellow Sri Lankans Tillakaratne Dilshan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Matthews, as well as overseas stars including New Zealand’s Jacob Oram, Nathan McCullum and Scott Styris, Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, Misbah Ul Haque, Saeed Ajmal and Umar Gul, West Indies’ Shiv Chanderpaul and Jerome Taylor, Australia’s Dirk Nannes, John Hastings, Andrew McDonald and Brad Hodge, and, South Africa’s Loots Bosman.

Jeroen Oerlemans, vice-president, TV Channels, ESPN EMEA, said: “The inaugural season of the Mahindra Sri Lanka Premier League cricket will feature some of the biggest stars in the sport. This is a great addition to our schedule in a month that is already full of top class sporting action including the return of the new football seasons around the UK and Europe.”

Sri Lanka Premier League rights holder Somerset Entertainment Ventures’ chairman Sandiip Bhammer said: “ESPN is the ideal platform to take Sri Lanka’s message in respect of a seminal cricket tournament of this stature to the rest of the world, especially at the end of the 30 years war, and we’re very confident of, and proud to be associated with a channel of the calibre of ESPN which has such fantastic following within its respective territories.”