2014 Champions League T20: Squads announced, marquee players choose IPL franchises

Mumbai Indians will be defending their CLT20 title this year

The 12 teams participating in this year’s Champions League (CL) Twenty20, which begins on September 13 and ends on October 4, have announced their final 15-man squads for the star-studded T20 tournament. The likes of Kieron Pollard, David Miller and Jacques Kallis, who had an option of choosing between their IPL team and their home team, have opted to play for their IPL franchise, thereby continuing the trend of previous seasons.

“Like previous seasons, players who have been named by more than one team have been asked to nominate which side they are going to represent,” said Dean Kino, the CLT20 director of legal and business affairs and a member of its governing council. “Players are free to make any decision they wish. Teams are then allowed to replace any player that has withdrawn from their squad and elected to play for another side.

“CLT20 regulations state that when a player elects to play for their ‘away’ team, that team must pay the ‘home’ team US$ 150,000 compensation per player,” said Kino. Just for clarity on the matter, he went on to explain that the home team is the team from the country the player in question represents in international cricket.

The tournament proper kicks off on September 17, with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) taking on Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), along with KKR and CSK, are the three IPL franchises taking part in the main tournament. Mumbai Indians (MI), meanwhile, will have to get past the qualifying stage of the tournament, which features Lahore Lions (Pak), Southern Express (SL) and Northern Knights (NZ) and takes place from September 13-16 in Raipur.

Here are the squads of the 4 IPL franchises:

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)	Kings XI Punjab (KXIP)	Chennai Super Kings (CSK)	Mumbai Indians (MI)
Gautam Gambhir	George Bailey	MS Dhoni	Rohit Sharma
Yusuf Pathan	Mitchell Johnson	Suresh Raina	Harbhajan Singh
Robin Uthappa	Glenn Maxwell	Ravichandran Ashwin	Ambati Rayudu
Piyush Chawla	David Miller	Ravindra Jadeja	Pragyan Ojha
R Vinay Kumar	Thisara Perera	Ashish Nehra	Praveen Kumar
Umesh Yadav	Akshar Patel	Mithun Manhas	Aditya Tare
Manish Pandey	Karanveer Singh	Ishwar Pandey	Jalaj Saxena
Suryakumar Yadav	Lakshmipathy Balaji	Pawan Negi	Jasprit Bumrah
Kuldeep Yadav	Manan Vohra	Mohit Sharma	Shreyas Gopal
Jacques Kallis	Virender Sehwag	Dwayne Smith	Lasith Malinga
Sunil Narine	Mandeep Singh	Dwayne Bravo	Kieron Pollard
Pat Cummins	Rishi Dhawan	John Hastings	Mike Hussey
Ryan Ten Doeschate	Parvinder Awana	Brendon McCullum	Corey Anderson
Morne Morkel	Wriddhiman Saha	Samuel Badree	Marchant de Lange
Andre Russell	Anureet Singh	Francois du Plessis	Corey Anderson

The squads of the other teams can be found here.