Lumbini All Stars, one of the six franchise teams of the Nepal T20 league, unveiled their logo at a press conference in Kathmandu on Monday, marking the start of their marketing campaign.

The team, owned by the All Star Sports based in Texas, USA, is managed by a group of non-residential Nepalis who also own Nepali All Stars cricket team in the US.

Sanjay Sharma, one-of the co-owners and chief executive of Lumbini All Stars, said: “Our team has a deep affinity with Nepali cricket and is looking forward to contributing in the development of the sports and infrastructure.”

Ashik Lama, the other co-owner, informed that the group were involved in cricket in the US for the last six years representing Nepal. The duo along with former Nepali international Kaniska Chaugain and Utsav Sigdel have been running a franchise cricket team Nepali All Stars in the US.

Nepali All Stars had managed two practice matches for Nepal national cricket team in Texas, US. The match was arranged ahead of Nepal’s US Triangular Series of the ICC World Cup League 2 in June.

“We are excited and happy to be a part of the maiden T20 league,” Sharma said. “We are already in the franchise system in US (cricket) and we have already created a base going through the system there. So I don’t think it will be much difficult for us in the franchise structure.”

Sharma continued, “We already have backup in the financial part. There is also potential to earn revenue from Nepali market. But it has not been explored yet. Maybe it won’t be possible to earn revenue this year or next year, but after that we could collect revenue from the market. We can also attract the markets of neighbouring countries where cricket is the number one game.”

According to Sharma, the team’s budget for the first edition will be finalised once the cricket governing body and its strategic partner Seven3Sports announce clear modality of the tournament. Regarding the team and overseas players, Sharma said, “We don’t want to have the biggest name of the game in the team but we would like to have someone who wants to contribute for Nepali cricket and teach us. But we don’t have clear guidelines as of now and we will form the team after getting clear guidelines from CAN.”