Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Arun Dhumal has 'categorically denied' reports of any talks between Saudi Cricket and the league for a possible investment. This comes amid the several media reports of Saudi looking to invest in cash-rich league. Dhumal, however, did not deny Saudi's keen interest in cricket altogether.

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"Saudi Cricket as such is part of ICC," Dhumal said while talking to ESPNCrininfo. "They're wanting to make some investments in cricket so that cricket becomes more relevant in that part of the world, given the diaspora from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh… There's a lot of aspirations and demands from those guys that more cricketing activity should happen there.

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"There has been a lot of speculation as to any talk between IPL and BCCI and Saudi Cricket with regard to their interest in IPL. I would want to categorically deny any of that. The idea was to give them a flavour of what IPL is all about. When you see the kind of numbers that happened there with regard to this mega-auction, everybody was startled as to how big this game is," he added.

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Saudi has been looking to expand the global footprint in sports across games. Their football league, called Saudi Pro League, has one of the biggest football stars of all time Cristiano Ronaldo. They have already disrupted golf with LIV Golf and now have merged with PGA Tour after much drama.

They have also offered over $1 billion for ATP and WTA tournament right to have a mark in international tennis and they already host a Formula 1 race.

Cricket seems a logical destination with T20 leagues springing up in every part of the world such as Major League Cricket (MLC) in the USA and ILT20 in UAE among others.