Sachin and Warne set to face off again in All-stars

Legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne wrote today in his Facebook account that the Cricket All-Stars series is back with a bang in 2017. Warne also announced a list of "new" legends whom they have signed up for this year's edition.

The new (rather newer old) faces include Brendon McCullum aka Bazz, eternal wanderer Kevin Pietersen, ex-Protea skipper Graeme Smith as well as recently retired Mitchell Johnson and Michael Clarke. Mitchell Johnson and Graeme Smith have waged a virtual war on Twitter in recent times, and they could well take it to the next level now.

Interestingly, no Indian player has been listed by Warne. It will, however, be preposterous for the league to go ahead without more Indian faces other than Sachin given the enormous fan base that cricket enjoys among non-resident Indians.

In 2015, when the All-stars played a three-leg series across the US with matches in Los Angeles, Houston and New York, the matches received a lot of build-up. The non-resident Indian audience in the country thronged the grounds as Sachin and Sehwag lined up to face Wasim Akram in an epic rewind. Despite the matches being held in makeshift baseball grounds, the event appeared to have sparked at least some energy into the aim of making cricket popular in the land of baseball. Although the actual affair ended up being rather sober in the first two matches, the final match turned out to be most exciting of the lot with the result being decided only in the last over.