Zaheer Khan buys Jaffna Kings, less than three weeks after their last owner was arrested
Anchor Sports AB, the Stockholm group co-owned by Zaheer Khan and Nagendra Siddoutam, has taken over the Lanka Premier League’s most successful franchise, which Sri Lanka Cricket had been running on emergency funding since 23 July.
Aug 5, 2026
Zaheer Khan has bought a cricket team. Anchor Sports AB, the Stockholm-based group he co-owns with the businessman Nagendra Siddoutam, has acquired Jaffna Kings of the Lanka Premier League, and the franchise will play as the Anchor Jaffna Kings. It is the fourth ownership group the club has had since the league began in 2020.
The team had been run by Sri Lanka Cricket and the LPL rights holders, Innovation Production Group, since 23 July, when the previous owners were removed. That arrangement was never meant to last. SLC and IPG put in emergency money and took over day-to-day control mid-season, which is not a position any board wants to be in with a playoff-bound side on its hands.
How Jaffna lost their owners
Sports Commune, co-owned by the former India Under-19 batter Manjot Kalra and the entrepreneur Mayank Goel, had taken charge of the franchise only in May. Kalra was arrested on 16 July on charges of corruption relating to this LPL season, and the news broke hours before the opening match. He was produced in court the next day and remanded. Bail was sought and refused, the Chief Magistrate saying it could prejudice the investigation, and he was still in custody when the sale was announced. Kalra has denied the allegations, and a statement issued on his behalf said he was fully cooperating with the investigation and confident of clearing his name. Goel’s whereabouts are not known, according to ESPNcricinfo.
Sports Commune were terminated a week later. They were not the first: the Lyca Group held the franchise from 2021 to 2025, and a consortium led by Arnold Anandan and Rahul Sood ran it in the inaugural season. Every one of those terms ended over unmet financial obligations. For a club with Jaffna’s record, that is a strange sentence to have to write.
The trophies kept arriving regardless
Jaffna have won four of the five completed LPL titles, in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024, with only B-Love Kandy interrupting them in 2023. No other franchise in the competition is close. This season they topped the round-robin table and went into the playoffs as the side to beat, which is roughly what they have been every year since the league started, whoever happened to be paying the bills.
What Anchor Sports already owns
The group runs the Antwerp Anchors in Belgium’s European T20 Premier League and the Vancouver Anchors men’s and women’s teams in Canada’s Super60. Jaffna is the biggest name in that group.
“To now be part of Sri Lankan cricket as an owner is something I’m genuinely thrilled about,” Zaheer said in the release announcing the deal, adding that he had long admired the bowlers Sri Lanka produces. Siddoutam called the acquisition “a significant step for us” and said the club would stay rooted in its local community while joining the wider Anchor network.
The LPL tournament director, Samantha Dodanwela, framed it as a stability play as much as an investment, pointing to the mentoring an owner of Zaheer’s background could offer young Sri Lankan players. After the summer Jaffna have had, stability is the part that will be judged first.