An­oth­er In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) team has tak­en con­trol of a Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) fran­chise with the an­nounce­ment Mon­day that the King's XI Pun­jab has ac­quired the St Lu­cia Zouks.

This was re­vealed by CPL Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer (COO) Pe­te Rus­sell at the San­dals Grande St. Lu­cia Re­sort and Spa in Gros Islet.

King's XI Pun­jab, who have played every edi­tion of the 11 IPL sea­sons, will now fol­low in the foot­steps of the own­ers of the Kolkata Knight Rid­ers (KKR), who pur­chased the T&T Red Steel three years ago be­fore nam­ing the fran­chise the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers.

Own­er of the fran­chise Mo­hit Bur­man and his Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) Satish Menon both made the long jour­ney from In­dia to St Lu­cia for Mon­day's launch and they are now look­ing for­ward to tak­ing the team to bet­ter days.

The Zouks have not en­joyed the best of re­sults over the past few sea­sons but with the added in­vest­ment they will be ex­posed to bet­ter play­ers and sup­port staff.

"We were en­cour­aged by what we saw hap­pen in Trinidad with the KKR and told our­selves that as we are look­ing to ex­pand this will be work­able," Bur­man told the me­dia.

"We are a strong fran­chise and we have played every edi­tion of the IPL. We will bring a lot of ex­per­tise to the set up at the Zouks and we are hop­ing to re­al­ly see an im­prove­ment and to as­sist in the over­all de­vel­op­ment of CPL and West In­dies."

Asked if there will be a change in the name of the team, Bur­man said: "I did have a dis­cus­sion with the Prime Min­is­ter (Al­lan Chas­tanet) and I told him we can look at it and if for sen­ti­men­tal rea­sons and sup­port we need to leave the name we will. How­ev­er, we have not made a de­ci­sion on that yet and we will see what is the best fit as we move for­ward."

St Lu­cia PM Al­lan Chas­tanet, who was present at the event, said this was great news for his coun­try, adding he was look­ing to gain more from the part­ner­ship.

"I have told Mo­hit that we will be look­ing be­yond crick­et and look­ing to bet­ter ties with In­dia," Chas­tanet said.

"We are grate­ful for what he has done in terms of his in­vest­ment in our crick­et team and we are look­ing for­ward to a num­ber of St Lu­cian's ben­e­fit­ing. The CPL has been bril­liant for the de­vel­op­ment of our coun­try as it mar­kets us to the world and we want to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing them."

Rus­sell said this was fan­tas­tic news for the tour­na­ment, as they are work­ing hard to take it to the next lev­el.

"With this in­vest­ment, it al­ways helps but it does not mean that we will not be in­vest­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly still in the tour­na­ment. The peo­ple of this love­ly coun­try will see CPL do­ing more for them now with this new de­vel­op­ment.

"We are hap­py to have Mo­hit and his group on board and I am sure they will do well for the team and the tour­na­ment. We at CPL will con­tin­ue work­ing hard to mar­ket this tour­na­ment and bring more to the peo­ple of the Caribbean."

Rus­sell said the team could have been sold last year but the CPL de­cid­ed to wait a bit longer.

"We could have sold the team last year but we ad­sorbed the ex­pens­es and wait­ed for the right own­ers and now that mo­ment has come."