Everything you need on the third edition of the ExxonMobil Guyana Global Super League — 12 matches, five champion franchises, one US$1 million prize, and ten days at Providence Stadium from July 23 to August 1, 2026.
Global Super League 2026 at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Official name | ExxonMobil Guyana Global Super League (GSLT20) |
| Edition | 3rd |
| Dates | July 23 – August 1, 2026 |
| Host nation | Guyana |
| Venue | Guyana National Stadium, Providence (all 12 matches) |
| Organiser | Cricket West Indies (CWI) |
| Chairman | Sir Clive Lloyd |
| Teams | 5 |
| Matches | 12 (10 league + Qualifier + Final) |
| Format | Single round-robin + playoffs |
| Prize pool | US $1,000,000 |
| Defending champions | Guyana Amazon Warriors |
| Title sponsor | ExxonMobil Guyana |
| Opening match | Lahore Qalandars v Perth Scorchers XI, July 23 |
| Final | August 1, 2026 |
What Is the Global Super League?
The Global Super League is an invitational Twenty20 competition staged entirely in Guyana, organised by Cricket West Indies and chaired by the Guyanese West Indies legend Sir Clive Lloyd. Its premise is unusual in a crowded franchise calendar, and it is worth understanding properly, because it explains almost everything about how the tournament is built.
Most T20 leagues are closed shops. The IPL has its ten franchises, the Big Bash its eight, the PSL its six. Teams are permanent, and the competition is internal. The GSL inverts that model. It does not have its own teams at all. Instead, it invites other leagues’ champions to fly in and play each other — a club world cup for T20 cricket, in effect, compressed into a ten-day window and played at a single ground.
That ambition has taken two editions to come properly into focus, and 2026 is the closest the GSL has come to realising it. Consider the field. The Desert Vipers won the ILT20 in January 2026. The Perth Scorchers won the 2025-26 Big Bash, their sixth title. The Guyana Amazon Warriors are the reigning GSL champions and the host franchise. The Lahore Qalandars are three-time PSL winners. Only the San Francisco Unicorns arrive without a recent trophy — and they bring something arguably more valuable, which is the first Major League Cricket presence the tournament has ever had.
If the ultimate intention of the GSL is to attract the winners of the various T20 franchise leagues, then 2026 represents its closest match so far.
The commercial architecture matters too. ExxonMobil Guyana is the title sponsor, which is not incidental: Guyana’s oil boom has reshaped the country’s economy since 2019, and the GSL is in part a soft-power project — a way of putting Georgetown on the global sporting map at a moment when the country has money and ambition in equal measure. The prize pool of US$1 million is, for a ten-day tournament, genuinely serious money.
Why the GSL matters more than its size suggests
Twelve matches is a small tournament. But the GSL occupies a strategic slot in the calendar that gives it outsized relevance. It slots into the gap between the end of Major League Cricket and the start of the Caribbean Premier League — meaning players and franchises already in the western hemisphere can pick it up without a transcontinental detour.
The trade-off is that the dates clash directly with The Hundred in England, and that clash shapes the squads you’ll read about below more than any other single factor. It is the reason Adam Voges is not coaching the Scorchers. It is part of the reason the Desert Vipers arrive with a barely recognisable roster. Understanding the GSL means understanding that it is fighting for players, not just fans.
Global Super League 2026 Schedule (Full Fixture List)
All 12 matches are at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence. Guyana runs on AST (UTC-4) year-round with no daylight saving, so the conversions below are stable for the whole tournament.
Day games start at 10:00 AST. Night games start at 19:00 AST.
| # | Date | AST | IST | GMT | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thu 23 Jul | 10:00 | 7:30 PM | 14:00 | Lahore Qalandars v Perth Scorchers XI |
| 2 | Thu 23 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (24th) | 23:00 | Guyana Amazon Warriors v San Francisco Unicorns |
| 3 | Fri 24 Jul | 10:00 | 7:30 PM | 14:00 | Lahore Qalandars v Desert Vipers |
| 4 | Sat 25 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (26th) | 23:00 | Guyana Amazon Warriors v Desert Vipers |
| 5 | Sun 26 Jul | 10:00 | 7:30 PM | 14:00 | San Francisco Unicorns v Perth Scorchers XI |
| 6 | Sun 26 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (27th) | 23:00 | Guyana Amazon Warriors v Lahore Qalandars |
| 7 | Mon 27 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (28th) | 23:00 | San Francisco Unicorns v Desert Vipers |
| 8 | Tue 28 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (29th) | 23:00 | Desert Vipers v Perth Scorchers XI |
| 9 | Wed 29 Jul | 10:00 | 7:30 PM | 14:00 | Lahore Qalandars v San Francisco Unicorns |
| 10 | Wed 29 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (30th) | 23:00 | Guyana Amazon Warriors v Perth Scorchers XI |
| 11 | Fri 31 Jul | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (1 Aug) | 23:00 | Qualifier — 2nd v 3rd |
| 12 | Sat 1 Aug | 19:00 | 4:30 AM (2 Aug) | 23:00 | FINAL — 1st v Qualifier winner |
Thursday July 30 is a rest day between the end of the league phase and the Qualifier.
Schedule quirks worth noticing
A few things jump out of that grid that the raw fixture lists elsewhere won’t tell you.
Every Amazon Warriors match is a night game. All five of the host’s fixtures are 19:00 starts. That is not an accident — it is a scheduling decision built around getting a Guyanese crowd into Providence after work, and it means the home side plays every one of its matches under lights, in conditions it knows better than anyone in the tournament. It is a meaningful competitive edge, and it comes on top of the obvious one.
The Scorchers have a brutal turnaround. Perth play the Desert Vipers on the night of July 28 and the Amazon Warriors on the night of July 29 — less than 24 hours between their final two league matches, the second of which is against the hosts under lights. If the Scorchers’ qualification hinges on that last game, fatigue will be a live factor.
Lahore play three of their four league games in the heat. The Qalandars have 10:00 starts against Perth, Desert Vipers and San Francisco, with only the Amazon Warriors fixture at night. Day cricket at Providence in late July means high humidity and a pitch that behaves differently to the night surface. For a squad built around young Pakistani players unfamiliar with Caribbean conditions, that is a real ask.
For Indian viewers, the day games at 7:30 PM IST are prime time — genuinely convenient. The night games at 4:30 AM IST are not. If you’re following from India and can only watch a handful, the 7:30 PM slots on July 23, 24, 26 and 29 are the ones to plan around.
GSL 2026 Format Explained
The format is simple, but it has a wrinkle that materially changes how teams will approach the league phase.
League stage. Five teams, single round-robin. Every team plays every other team once — four matches each, ten matches total. Two points for a win, and net run rate separates teams on equal points, as standard.
Playoffs. This is where it gets interesting:
- The team finishing 1st goes straight to the Final. No further qualification needed.
- The teams finishing 2nd and 3rd play the Qualifier on July 31. The winner joins the table-topper in the Final.
- Teams finishing 4th and 5th are eliminated.
Final. August 1. The league winner v the Qualifier winner.
Why finishing first is worth so much
In a four-match league phase, the margin between first and third is razor-thin — potentially a single result, or even net run rate alone. But the reward gap is enormous.
Finish first and you get a rest day, a guaranteed Final, and the chance to watch your opponents beat each other up in the Qualifier. Finish second and you have to win a knockout match 24 hours before the Final, with no margin for a bad night. Finish third and you’re in the same position but you got there with a worse record.
This is the IPL playoff structure’s logic compressed into a smaller field, and it means net run rate will matter enormously. With only four league games each, a single heavy defeat can be almost impossible to correct. Expect teams to chase aggressively even in dead rubbers, and expect the table to be volatile until the last ball of match ten on the night of July 29.
It also means the tournament can be effectively decided by the schedule quirks noted above. The Scorchers’ 24-hour turnaround, the Warriors’ all-night slate — in a four-game league, these aren’t footnotes. They’re structural.
GSL 2026 Teams and Squads
Five franchises, five leagues, five continents’ worth of cricket. Here’s each in detail.
Guyana Amazon Warriors (Caribbean Premier League) 🇬🇾
Status: Host franchise · Defending GSL champions
The Amazon Warriors are the spine of this tournament. They are the only team to have played all three editions, they won the 2025 title in front of a sold-out Providence crowd, and they play all five of their matches at home under lights.
Their 2026 squad, announced June 3, is the most complete on paper. It combines Guyanese and West Indian core — Shimron Hetmyer, Romario Shepherd, Gudakesh Motie, Keemo Paul, Johnson Charles, Amir Jangoo, Matthew Forde, Quentin Sampson, Rovman Powell — with high-grade overseas experience in Imran Tahir, Mohammad Nabi, Dwaine Pretorius and Muhammad Haris.
Squad: Shimron Hetmyer, Romario Shepherd, Rovman Powell, Gudakesh Motie, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Imran Tahir, Dwaine Pretorius, Johnson Charles, Mohammad Nabi, Muhammad Haris, Amir Jangoo, Quentin Sampson, Keemo Paul, Matthew Forde.
Squad update (July 5): Wicketkeeper-batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz comes in for the injured Glenn Phillips. That is less of a downgrade than it sounds. Gurbaz was the leading run-scorer of GSL 2025 with 139 runs and made a match-defining 60 in last year’s Final. He knows this ground and this tournament.
The Warriors’ real weapon, though, is a 47-year-old leg-spinner. Imran Tahir was Player of the Series in 2025 with 14 wickets — the most in the tournament by a distance — and he has an almost supernatural record at Providence, where the surface grips and turn arrives just slowly enough to be unplayable in the middle overs. Any assessment of this tournament that doesn’t start with Tahir bowling four overs at night at Providence is missing the point.
Verdict: Deserved favourites. Home ground, home crowd, night cricket, the tournament’s best spinner, and continuity nobody else can match.
Desert Vipers (International League T20) 🇦🇪
Status: Reigning ILT20 champions
The Vipers arrive with the strongest claim to the “champion of champions” billing — they won the ILT20 in January 2026 after twice finishing runners-up — and the weakest ability to prove it, because the squad that won that title has essentially evaporated.
Of the eleven who played the ILT20 final on January 4, 2026, not one of the nine overseas players is available for the GSL. Injuries and rival contractual commitments took all of them. Sam Curran, who was instrumental in the title win, reported a groin injury in mid-March with no return date set. Director of cricket Tom Moody has been candid that assembling this squad posed real challenges.
What they’ve built instead is genuinely interesting. Chris Green was named captain — an Australian with eight years and four franchises’ worth of CPL experience, which is exactly the local knowledge this squad needs. Around him: Kyle Mayers and Khary Pierre bring West Indian conditions expertise, Daryl Mitchell and Bevon Jacobs come from New Zealand, Shadab Khan from Pakistan, and Andries Gous — part of the ILT20-winning squad — from the USA.
Squad: Chris Green (c), Vriitya Aravind (wk), Andries Gous (wk), Zachary Carter, Bevon Jacobs, Kyle Mayers, Daryl Mitchell, Shadab Khan, Khary Pierre, Ramon Simmonds, Khuzaima bin Tanveer, Matiullah Khan, Sanjay Pahal, Kyle Jamieson.
Two squad changes: Jason Behrendorff was replaced by Kyle Jamieson due to injury. Separately, South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw — one of only around twenty men with 10,000-plus T20 runs — signed as a replacement for the injured Chris Green.
⚠️ Note: That second change leaves the Vipers captaincy genuinely unclear. Green was announced as captain; if he is now injured and replaced, a new captain has not been publicly confirmed. Expect an announcement before July 23.
One notable strand of Vipers strategy: four UAE players — Khuzaima bin Tanveer, Vriitya Aravind, Matiullah Khan and Sanjay Pahal — are in the travelling squad. The franchise has framed this as a deliberate vote of confidence in local talent rather than squad filler, part of a long-term UAE development commitment that runs through the club’s whole calendar.
Verdict: The hardest team to read. Champion badge, replacement squad, uncertain captaincy. Could finish anywhere.
Lahore Qalandars (Pakistan Super League) 🇵🇰
Status: Three-time PSL champions · Returning after 2024
The Qalandars provide this tournament’s biggest story, and it isn’t a happy one.
On Monday July 13 — ten days before the tournament — Lahore announced their GSL squad, and Shaheen Shah Afridi was not in it. The man who captained them to three PSL titles has been removed as captain and left out entirely. The franchise has not explained why.
In his place, New Zealand all-rounder Michael Bracewell has been named captain, with former Australia quick Shaun Tait appointed head coach for the campaign.
The Afridi situation is worth unpacking, because the initial reporting made it look more mysterious than it is. He has signed with Kandy Royals for the Lanka Premier League — and the LPL runs July 17 to August 8, a window that swallows the GSL’s July 23 to August 1 entirely. He was never going to be able to play both.
The PCB confirmed around July 14 that Afridi had been granted a No Objection Certificate for the LPL. Separately, the board issued GSL-specific NOCs to 13 Pakistani players; he was not among them. The wider backdrop is that he has been dropped from Pakistan’s Test squads for the West Indies and England series and is now being managed as a white-ball specialist, having been named in the NCA white-ball camp while a red-ball camp ran alongside it.
What remains unexplained is why the choice fell toward Kandy rather than the franchise he captained to three PSL titles — and why Lahore formally stripped the captaincy rather than simply noting his unavailability. Neither party has addressed those points publicly.
Read more: Why Shaheen Afridi is not playing GSL 2026
Squad: Michael Bracewell (c), Abdullah Shafique, Muhammad Naeem, Parvez Hossain Emon, Usama Mir, Shamyl Hussain, Shayan Jahangir, Farhan Yousaf, Shahab Khan, Mehran Mumtaz, Ali Shabbir, Imran Randhawa, Delano Potgieter, Muhammad Basit.
Note how young and how lightly-capped that list is. Team director Sameen Rana has been explicit that this is deliberate — the squad is built around players who represent the future of Pakistan cricket, with the tournament framed as exposure to different conditions and quality opposition. Abdullah Shafique and Usama Mir have senior international caps. Most of the rest do not.
The overseas contingent carries the experience: Bracewell (New Zealand), Parvez Hossain Emon (Bangladesh, who earned a BCB No Objection Certificate and has played for Lahore in the PSL before), Shayan Jahangir (USA) and Delano Potgieter (South Africa).
Verdict: A development squad in a champions’ tournament. Bracewell and Tait are quality, but this looks like a side sent to learn rather than to win — and three of their four league games are in the daytime heat.
Perth Scorchers XI (Big Bash League) 🇦🇺
Status: BBL champions 2025-26 (sixth title)
The most decorated franchise in Australian domestic cricket, and the “XI” suffix is doing real work — this is a Scorchers-badged squad rather than the full BBL-winning side, with The Hundred taking its share.
That includes the coach. Simon Katich, the BBL|03 title-winning captain and Scorchers great, steps in as stand-in head coach because Adam Voges is unavailable due to Trent Rockets commitments in The Hundred.
The playing squad, announced July 6, is led by Ashton Turner and blends the Scorchers’ Australian core — Ashton Agar, Aaron Hardie, Jhye Richardson, D’Arcy Short — with shrewd additions built for Caribbean conditions: West Indies internationals Akeal Hosein and Ackeem Auguste, plus New Zealand’s Mark Chapman.
Squad: Ashton Turner (c), Ashton Agar, Ackeem Auguste, Mark Chapman, Brody Couch, Joel Curtis, Sam Fanning, Dian Forrester, Aaron Hardie, Akeal Hosein, Usman Khan, Sufiyan Moqim, Jhye Richardson, D’Arcy Short.
That’s a smarter squad than a first glance suggests. Hosein is a left-arm spinner who has spent his career bowling on exactly these surfaces. Agar gives them a second frontline spin option. Sufiyan Moqim adds a wrist-spinner. In a tournament where Providence is likely to reward slow bowling, Perth have arrived with three or four genuine options — which is more than most.
Verdict: Well-constructed for the conditions, and Richardson gives them a genuine new-ball threat. The July 28-29 turnaround is the obstacle.
San Francisco Unicorns (Major League Cricket) 🇺🇸
Status: GSL debutants · First MLC franchise to compete
The Unicorns’ inclusion completed the 2026 line-up and marks the first time a Major League Cricket team has played in the GSL. Announcing it, Sir Clive Lloyd said the inclusion reflects the growing global footprint of the game and the strength of franchise cricket in the United States.
Founded in 2023 as one of MLC’s six founding franchises, the Unicorns are owned by Cambrian Ventures co-founders Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, play home matches at the Oakland Coliseum, and — in a neat piece of GSL symmetry — count Cricket Victoria as their high-performance partner. Victoria were the beaten finalists in the inaugural 2024 GSL. The Unicorns have reached the MLC playoffs in each of their seasons.
⚠️ The Unicorns had not announced their GSL squad at the time of writing. They are still completing their MLC 2026 campaign, and the GSL roster is expected shortly before the tournament. We will update this section when it lands.
Their MLC 2026 core gives a reasonable indication of who could travel: captain Matt Short (also Adelaide Strikers skipper), New Zealand power-hitter Finn Allen, South African teenager Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Pakistan quick Haris Rauf, USA breakout batter Sanjay Krishnamurthi, all-rounder Hassan Khan and seamer Brody Couch. How many of them make the trip to Guyana is the open question — and Couch, note, is already named in the Perth squad, which tells you how tangled these commitments get.
Verdict: Unknowable until the squad drops. If Short, Allen and Rauf travel, they’re dangerous. If it’s a second-string side at the end of a long MLC season, they’re the likeliest fifth place.
Venue: Guyana National Stadium, Providence
Every ball of GSL 2026 is bowled at one ground.
The Guyana National Stadium — universally called Providence Stadium — sits at Providence on the East Bank Demerara highway, roughly 10km south of central Georgetown and easily reached from the capital’s hotel districts. Capacity is 15,000. It is Guyana’s flagship international venue and the regular home of ICC fixtures, CPL matches and West Indies internationals.
What Providence does to cricket
This is the single most important tactical fact of the tournament, and it’s why the squads above look the way they do.
Providence is a spinner’s ground. The surface is slow, it grips, and it rewards bowlers who can take pace off the ball. Scores here are typically lower than the T20 franchise average, chases are harder than they look, and the middle overs — 7 to 15 — are where matches are decided rather than the death.
Look again at the squads with that in mind. The Amazon Warriors have Imran Tahir, Gudakesh Motie and Mohammad Nabi. Perth brought Akeal Hosein, Ashton Agar and Sufiyan Moqim. The Vipers have Shadab Khan and Khary Pierre. Lahore have Usama Mir and Mehran Mumtaz. Nobody arrived here by accident.
The floodlit night conditions suit the compressed T20 format, and the dew factor at Providence in late July is a genuine variable — captains winning the toss in night games will think hard about bowling first, because gripping a wet ball with fingers or wrists gets materially harder after the innings break.
Late July in Guyana sits at the tail of the primary wet season. Rain is a real possibility, humidity is high, and the day games in particular will be draining. There is a rest day built in on July 30, but no reserve day is publicly designated for the league phase — which makes net run rate, and the possibility of washouts, even more consequential in a four-game group.
GSL 2026 Prize Money
The Global Super League 2026 carries a prize pool of US $1,000,000 — approximately A$1.41 million, or roughly ₹8.6 crore — making it one of the richest T20 tournaments hosted in the Caribbean relative to its length.
For context: that is a million US dollars across twelve matches and ten days. The per-match value is extraordinary for a competition of this size, and it explains why franchises are willing to navigate the calendar chaos to get here.
Sir Clive Lloyd, announcing the 2026 edition in February, framed the tournament’s trajectory this way: in just two years, he said, the GSL has established itself as a truly global club competition, showcasing outstanding talent and attracting support both locally and internationally — with five teams competing fiercely for the title and the US$1 million purse.
A detailed breakdown of the winner/runner-up split has not been published.
Global Super League History: 2024 and 2025
Two editions, two champions, both crowned at Providence.
| Edition | Year | Champion | Runner-up | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2024 | Rangpur Riders 🇧🇩 | Cricket Victoria 🇦🇺 | Won by 56 runs |
| 2nd | 2025 | Guyana Amazon Warriors 🇬🇾 | Rangpur Riders 🇧🇩 | Won by 32 runs |
GSL 2024: the inaugural edition
The first season ran from November 26 to December 7, 2024. The five teams were the Guyana Amazon Warriors (2023 CPL champions), English county side Hampshire, the Lahore Qalandars from the PSL, Rangpur Riders from the BPL, and Australian state team Victoria.
The Final was played on December 6 at Providence, where Rangpur Riders beat Victoria by 56 runs to become the GSL’s first champions. Bangladesh’s Soumya Sarkar was Player of the Series, top-scoring across the tournament with 188 runs. Victoria’s Callum Stow took the most wickets with 9. The Lahore Qalandars finished fourth.
GSL 2025: the Warriors break through
The second edition moved to July 2025 — establishing the mid-year window the tournament now occupies. The Amazon Warriors and Rangpur Riders both returned, joined by New Zealand’s Central Districts, the Dubai Capitals from the ILT20, and Hobart Hurricanes.
The Final, on July 18, 2025, sold out Providence. The Guyana Amazon Warriors beat Rangpur Riders by 32 runs to take their first GSL title — Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Johnson Charles both made sixties, and Dwaine Pretorius took three wickets.
Imran Tahir was Player of the Series with 14 wickets. Gurbaz was the leading run-scorer with 139.
Every one of those four names — Gurbaz, Charles, Pretorius, Tahir — is in the 2026 Warriors squad. That is the continuity nobody else in this tournament has.
Players to Watch at GSL 2026
Imran Tahir (Guyana Amazon Warriors). The defending Player of the Series, 14 wickets in 2025, and a leg-spinner whose entire skill set is built for a slow, gripping Providence surface at night. At 47 he remains, by some distance, the most likely man to decide this tournament.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (Guyana Amazon Warriors). Leading run-scorer of GSL 2025 and a 60 in the Final. Brought in for the injured Glenn Phillips — a replacement who happens to be the tournament’s most proven batter.
Michael Bracewell (Lahore Qalandars). Handed the captaincy of a young squad in unfamiliar conditions, replacing a three-time PSL-winning skipper. A genuinely difficult brief, and a fascinating test of a player who has quietly become one of the better T20 all-round operators.
Rilee Rossouw (Desert Vipers). One of roughly twenty men in history with 10,000-plus T20 runs. Signed as an injury replacement, which is a remarkable way to acquire that kind of pedigree.
Akeal Hosein (Perth Scorchers XI). A left-arm spinner from Trinidad, bowling at Providence, for an Australian franchise. Perth’s smartest selection.
Shimron Hetmyer (Guyana Amazon Warriors). Guyana’s own, and capable of ending any match in an over. In the inaugural GSL he hit five sixes in a single over against Hampshire. A Providence crowd watching Hetmyer bat under lights is the tournament’s best atmosphere.
Jhye Richardson (Perth Scorchers XI). If the new ball does anything at all in the first six, Richardson is the man most likely to exploit it.
GSL 2026 Tickets
Tickets went on sale Monday April 27, 2026, and are available online through the official GSL ticket shop and via gslt20.com. All tickets are delivered through the GSL Ticket Wallet, a mobile ticketing system designed to allow storing, managing and transferring tickets purchased through the official website.
Published ticket prices (Guyanese dollars):
| Stand | Warriors games | Non-Warriors games |
|---|---|---|
| Green | GYD $5,000 | GYD $2,000 |
| Red | GYD $4,000 | GYD $1,500 |
| Orange | GYD $2,000 | GYD $1,000 |
| Grass Mound | GYD $1,000 | GYD $500 |
The pricing tells its own story: Warriors games cost two-and-a-half times as much as the rest. Providence sells out for the home side, and the 2025 Final was a sell-out.
GSL-CPL bundle. The tournament is running a joint offer with the Caribbean Premier League: buy GSL tickets and get access to purchase the same number of CPL tickets in the same stand, up to six per match while supplies last. In-person sales run through the Amazon Warriors Box Office at 233-234 Camp Street, Georgetown.
How to Watch GSL 2026 Live
⚠️ Broadcast and streaming partners for the 2026 edition had not been publicly confirmed at the time of writing.
We’re flagging this rather than guessing, because a great deal of what circulates online about GSL streaming rights is speculation dressed up as fact.
What we can confirm: the Global Super League operates an official YouTube channel (@GlobalSuperLeagueT20), which has carried tournament content in previous editions, and the league announced a promotional partnership with Cricket West Indies in June 2026 that placed GSL branding on West Indies men’s shirts for the Sri Lanka series — a signal of how closely the two bodies are working on visibility.
For confirmed broadcast details, the reliable channels are the official GSL website (gslt20.com), Instagram @gslt_20 (the most actively updated), and X @gslt20. We will update this section the moment rights are announced.
For live scores, ball-by-ball commentary and the points table, ESPNcricinfo’s GSL 2026 series page will carry full coverage from July 23.
Storylines to Follow
Can anyone actually beat the Warriors at Providence? Home crowd, five night games, the tournament’s best spinner, four returning match-winners from a title-winning side. The honest answer is that everything has to go right for someone else.
What happened with Shaheen Afridi? A three-time PSL-winning captain formally stripped of the captaincy and left out, ten days out, with no explanation — while holding an LPL contract that clashes with the entire GSL window. The clash explains the absence; it doesn’t explain the captaincy call, or why Kandy came before his own franchise.
Does the Vipers’ champion badge mean anything? Winning the ILT20 in January and arriving in July with none of your nine title-winning overseas players is a strange kind of title defence. It’s also an honest illustration of the structural problem the GSL faces: you can invite champions, but you can’t compel their squads.
Can MLC compete? The Unicorns’ debut is a test of whether American franchise cricket travels. A strong showing legitimises MLC’s standing; a thrashing at the end of a long domestic season doesn’t.
Does the calendar clash bite? The Hundred takes players. MLC takes players. The GSL’s growth depends on whether it can win those fights, and 2026 is the clearest data point yet.
GSL 2026 Prediction
Guyana Amazon Warriors are the deserved favourites, and it isn’t close. Every structural advantage in this tournament points their way.
Perth Scorchers XI look the best-built of the challengers — three spin options for a spinning ground, Richardson with the new ball, Turner leading. The July 28-29 turnaround is the thing that could undo them.
Desert Vipers are the wildcard. Rossouw and Mayers can win games on their own; the captaincy uncertainty and the wholesale squad turnover argue against consistency across four matches.
San Francisco Unicorns are unknowable until the squad lands.
Lahore Qalandars, on the evidence of a deliberately young squad and three day games, look the most likely to finish fifth — which, given the franchise has openly framed this as a development exercise, may not trouble them much.
Predicted final: Guyana Amazon Warriors v Perth Scorchers XI.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Global Super League 2026? July 23 to August 1, 2026 — a ten-day window. The opening match is Lahore Qalandars v Perth Scorchers XI on July 23, and the Final is on August 1.
Where is GSL 2026 being played? All 12 matches are at the Guyana National Stadium (Providence Stadium) in Providence, East Bank Demerara, about 10km from Georgetown. Capacity 15,000.
How many teams are in the Global Super League 2026? Five: Guyana Amazon Warriors (CPL, host, defending champions), Desert Vipers (ILT20 champions), Lahore Qalandars (PSL), Perth Scorchers XI (BBL) and San Francisco Unicorns (MLC).
How many matches are in GSL 2026? Twelve — ten league matches in a single round-robin, plus the Qualifier on July 31 and the Final on August 1. (Some outlets have reported 11; that appears to be an error.)
What is the GSL 2026 prize money? US $1,000,000.
Who won the Global Super League 2025? The Guyana Amazon Warriors, beating Rangpur Riders by 32 runs in a sold-out Final at Providence on July 18, 2025. Imran Tahir was Player of the Series.
Who won the first Global Super League? Rangpur Riders, beating Cricket Victoria by 56 runs in the 2024 Final. Soumya Sarkar was Player of the Series.
Who is the GSL chairman? Sir Clive Lloyd, the Guyanese West Indies legend who captained the side through its era of dominance from 1974 to 1985.
Why is Shaheen Afridi not playing in GSL 2026? He has signed with Kandy Royals for the Lanka Premier League, which runs July 17 to August 8 and overlaps the entire GSL window — he cannot play both. The PCB granted him an LPL No Objection Certificate around July 14; he was not on the separate list of 13 Pakistani players cleared for the GSL. Lahore Qalandars named their squad on July 13 without him and removed him as captain, and have not publicly explained that decision. Full story here.
Who is captaining Lahore Qalandars in GSL 2026? New Zealand all-rounder Michael Bracewell, with Shaun Tait as head coach.
What time do GSL 2026 matches start in India? Day games (10:00 AST) start at 7:30 PM IST. Night games (19:00 AST) start at 4:30 AM IST the following morning.
Is the Global Super League an ICC tournament? No. It’s a T20 franchise tournament organised by Cricket West Indies, sitting alongside leagues like the CPL, ILT20 and PSL rather than within ICC structures.
What’s the difference between the GSL and the CPL? The CPL is the Caribbean’s long-running flagship league, played across multiple venues from August into September. The GSL is a separate, shorter invitational hosted entirely in Guyana at Providence, with a five-team, 12-match, ten-day format and franchises from outside the Caribbean. They complement rather than compete with each other — and the two are running a joint ticket bundle in 2026.
Who is the GSL title sponsor? ExxonMobil Guyana, since the inaugural 2024 edition. The tournament’s full name is the ExxonMobil Guyana Global Super League. Other 2026 partners include ENet (Premier Partner), Nagico Insurances, Banks DIH (XM Rum), Demerara Bank, Queensway Security Service, Limacol and Champion.
How do the GSL 2026 playoffs work? The team finishing first goes straight to the Final. Second and third meet in the Qualifier on July 31, and the winner takes the other Final spot. Fourth and fifth are eliminated.
Last updated: July 15, 2026. Squad lists continue to roll out ahead of the tournament; this page will be updated as official announcements are made. Sources include Cricket West Indies and official Global Super League channels, ESPNcricinfo, Kaieteur News, News Room Guyana, iNews Guyana, Guyana Times, and the participating franchises.
