Hyderabad: Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. has forged an alliance with the Silicon Valley leaders to bid for a London-based cricket team. The group wants to buy a team in the England Cricket Board’s (ECB) The Hundred according to a report by Bloomberg. The consortium includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, and others. The group is reportedly targeting one of the two teams in the Hundred; the Oval Invincibles or London Spirit.
The Oval Invincible and London Spirits are the two teams that are garnering the most attention amongst all the eight participants from the potential buyers. The reasons behind this are their location and iconic venues. As the London Spirit plays at the Lord’s is most appealing for the bidders because of the rich legacy of the venue.
The report mentions that the initiative is spearheaded by Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and Times Internet's Vice Chairman Satyan Gajwani. Other members of the group include Egon Durban from Silver Lake Management LLC.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are cautious at the moment regarding moving forward too quickly in terms of the sale of stakes in The Hundred. The board regards it as a valuable product and that is why they are taking time to proceed with selling the stakes. The final list of investors is expected to be announced in a span of a few months.
The Hundred which was a concept introduced in 2021, features a unique 100-ball format with the purpose of making the sport more entertaining and appealing to young bunch of audiences. The tournament has garnered over two million spectators since its inaugural edition.
