ST GEORGE'S–The Unit­ed States based Cha­lak Mi­tra Group (CMG) are the new fran­chise own­ers of reign­ing Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) Cham­pi­ons, Ja­maica Tallawahs, or­gan­is­ers have an­nounced.The an­nounce­ment was made here af­ter the Tallawahs post­ed a thrilling open­ing round vic­to­ry over St.Lu­cia Zouks at the na­tion­al sta­di­um here at the week­end."We're de­light­ed to be­come the new own­ers of the Ja­maica Tallawahs fran­chise," de­clared Man­ish Pa­tel, chair­man and pres­i­dent of CMG."As a group we are pas­sion­ate about crick­et and af­ter see­ing the suc­cess of the CPL last year, we knew this was some­thing we want­ed to be a part of."

CMG, found­ed by a group of en­tre­pre­neurs from In­dia is head­quar­tered in Dal­las, Texas and owns and op­er­ates restau­rant con­cepts across Amer­i­ca, in­clud­ing one of the largest KFC fran­chis­es in the coun­try.The group, through its restau­rant busi­ness­es, has spon­sor­ship deals with NBA teams, the Dal­las Mav­er­icks and Mem­phis Griz­zlies, as well as sev­er­al ini­tia­tives at col­le­giate and grass-roots lev­els.Chris Gayle scored the first ever CPL cen­tu­ry as Tallawahs, who emerged as cham­pi­ons from the in­au­gur­al CPL last year, beat Zouks to set the tone for an ex­cit­ing sec­ond sea­son.The Ja­maica Tallawahs play their next match against the An­tigua Hawks­bills at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um to­mor­row. (CMC)