Desi titans of tech are now Lords of cricket

US-led consortium's winning bid stood at £295 million
LONDON: A consortium of US-based Indian techies have won the bid to own 49% of

The Hundred

's Lord's franchise

London Spirit

.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Palo Alto Networks CEO

Nikesh Arora

, Times Internet Limited vice chairman

Satyan Gajwani

, Adobe CEO

Shantanu Narayen

, Silverlake Technology CEO Egon Durban, Sequoia's Jim Goetz and two others are part of the consortium that participated in an e-auction process on Friday to grab the franchise.

On Thursday, Reliance-led Mumbai Indians had won the bid to own The Hundred's other London franchise Oval Invincibles.
Sources say the US-led consortium's winning bid stood at £295 million.
Arora, Pichai and Narayen are known to be big cricket fans while Nadella co-owns Major League Cricket's (MLC) franchise

Seattle Orcas

, and Gajwani owns and runs Willow TV, cricket's biggest streaming platform in the west, as well as Cricbuzz website.
£295 million is the 100% bid value of which the consortium will pay 49%. The remaining 51% will remain with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as part of The Hundred's business model.
In a separate bidding process, MLC franchise Washington Freedom won the Cardiff franchise for £65 million.