NEW DELHI: Pakistan cricketers will not be featuring in IPL III starting next month but they will be busy in a new T20 league in Karachi. Former Pakistan wicketkeeper Rashid Latif and the Karachi city government have come together to launch this week what might be the most lucrative club tournament to have been played in Pakistan.

The Karachi Champions League, a Twenty20 league, for the leading clubs of the city will begin next week with Pakistani Rs 10 million (around $ 117,200) as the top prize for the winners. The tournament, a brainchild of Rashid Latif and the Rashid Latif Cricket Academy, will feature a number of Karachi-based international players, as well as a host of domestic cricketers. Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi, Khalid Latif, Fawad Alam, Khurram Manzoor and Sarfraz Ahmed, among others, will be playing.

The winning club will be getting Pakistani Rs 10 million, the runners-up will receive Pakistani Rs 5 million, the semi-finalists Pakistani Rs 500,000 each and the quarter-finalists Pakistani Rs 250,000. All told there is Pakistani Rs 17 million ($ 200,000) in prize money at stake, easily the most lucrative local tournament in the strife-torn country's history.