City Kaitak sign up England’s Ravi Bopara as they eye Hong Kong T20 Blitz title
Coach Robin Singh is confident the squad can improve from 2017’s runners-up performance
The team in the striking canary yellow outfits have confirmed Pakistani all-rounder Sohail Tanvir, English all-rounder Ravi Bopara, West Indies’ Samuel Badree and Rayad Emrit and Scotland’s Kyle Coetzer as their foreign players for the February 6-11 tournament.
City Kaitak were beaten by Kowloon Cantons in last year’s final and Robin Singh, the team’s mentor and head coach, said: “I am thrilled to have the likes of Tanvir, Bopara and Badree joining last season’s highest scorer, Kyle Coetzer and ever-contributing Rayad Emrit to the team. These players have a wealth of experience in T20s and it will be a great learning opportunity for the young Hong Kong players to rub shoulders with these superstars.”
The quality of the overseas players is supported by a talented local pool, including Hong Kong players Aizaz Khan, Waqas Barkat, Anshuman Rath and Jamie Atkinson.
Sohail recently entered the record books for his performance in the Caribbean Premier League when he took five wickets for a mere three runs – the best ever bowling performance in terms of economy in T20s. Ravi Bopara and Samuel Badree have been prolific in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Pakistan Super League (PSL) and Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL).
Bopara has contributed with bat and ball with a T20 batting average of over 27 and a strike rate of 119.20. Badree has a reputation for being very difficult to score runs off, which is evident in his T20 economy rate of under six runs an over.