Anchor Sports AB, a Stockholm-based sports ownership group co-owned by former India fast bowler Zaheer Khan and businessman Nagendra Siddoutam, has acquired the Lanka Premier League franchise Jaffna Kings. The team will be rebranded as Anchor Jaffna Kings.
The purchase returns the franchise to private ownership after a period of emergency control. Sri Lanka Cricket and the LPL rights holder, Innovation Production Group, had run the team directly since July 23, when the previous ownership was terminated.
That collapse followed the arrest of co-owner Manjot Kalra on match-fixing charges on July 16. The former India Under-19 cricketer remains in remand custody; the whereabouts of his business partner Mayank Goel are unknown. Their company, Sports Commune, had taken ownership of the franchise in May.
In the days after Kalra’s arrest, SLC and IPG deployed emergency funds and assumed direct operational control to keep the team in the season.
Jaffna has now had four ownership groups in six years — a consortium led by Arnold Anandan and Rahul Sood in the inaugural season, the Lyca Group from 2021 to 2025, then Sports Commune. Each term ended over unmet financial obligations.
The on-field record is the opposite story. Jaffna is the most dominant side in LPL history, winning four of the league’s five completed titles, and topped the round-robin table again this season to reach the playoffs.
“This is a significant step for us,” Siddoutam said in a release issued by IPG. “Sri Lanka has a rich cricketing heritage, and the LPL has established itself as a well-run, highly competitive league in a short span of time.”
The release said the acquisition strengthens a portfolio that already includes the Antwerp Anchors in Belgium’s European T20 Premier League and the Vancouver Anchors men’s and women’s teams in Canada’s Super60 league.
Sources: Ada Derana.
