JEDDAH – The Saudi Arabia Cricket Board is negotiating with startcricketers Shahid Afridi and Inzamam Ul-Haq about the inaugural T10 crickettournament scheduled to be held in the Kingdom later this year.

Six teams played in the first-ever T10 event in Sharjah in December, butthe Saudi Cricket Board are seeking to go bigger and better, reports ArabNews on Friday.

“It will be a big-money tournament,” Nadeem Nadwi, the CEO of SaudiCricket, told the newspaper.

“We would like it to be high profile and make it more attractive for theplayers with the prize money. We are working on the possibility of makingit $300,000 for the winners and $150,000 for the runners-up.”

Pakistan crowd favorite Afridi, known as “Boom Boom,” is already beinglined to play in the round-robin tournament, which will be held over amaximum of six days at the Ministry of Education Stadium in Jeddah, whilethe hope is to get the Punjabi Legends, the team co-owned by Inzamam, totake part.

“It is difficult to get Indian players as they have a defined policy wherethey only play in the Indian Premier League. It will be main players fromthe sub-continent, but we are (also) expecting players from the UK, WestIndies and South Africa.”

“We want eight teams or a minimum of six franchises,” said Nadwi. “Therewould be two from Pakistan, two from India, one from Sri Lanka, one fromBangladesh, one from UAE and one from Saudi Arabia. We’re thinking of threematches a day between five to six days.

The Saudi Cricket Board is still awaiting official sanctioning from theInternational Cricket Council, but they do not anticipate that being aproblem and expect to be given the green light in August. The plan is tomake the tournament a regular part of the short-format circuit and stage itevery year for at least the next five years.