PORT-OF-SPAIN–Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Steel have been re­named Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers in a move that re­flects the vi­sion of the new In­di­an own­ers to make the brand a tru­ly glob­al one.

The fran­chise was pur­chased last sea­son by busi­ness­man and Bol­ly­wood star Shah Rukh Khan, who is al­so a co-own­er of es­tab­lished In­di­an Pre­mier League side Kolkata Knight Rid­ers.

"The ac­qui­si­tion of the Trin­ba­go fran­chise is con­sis­tent with our vi­sion to ex­pand the 'Knight Rid­ers'brand glob­al­ly," said Venky Mysore, chief ex­ec­u­tive of KKR.

"We are proud of the pow­er­ful KKR brand we have built in In­dia as part of the IPL as well as the ever-grow­ing fan base. We now look for­ward to ex­pand­ing our brand in Trin­ba­go as well as the en­tire Caribbean as part of the CPL."

The T&T fran­chise are the reign­ing CPL cham­pi­ons af­ter de­feat­ing 2014 cham­pi­ons Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in the fi­nal of the tour­na­ment. They have been one of the more suc­cess­ful teams, reach­ing the se­mi-fi­nals of the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment in 2013 and the fol­low­ing year. This year, they man­aged to ac­quire off-spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine from Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, to re­unite him with the KKR brand. Nar­ine plays for KKR in the IPL. De­spite the name change, Shah Rukh Khan said he did not ex­pect Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers to lose the lo­cal flavour.

"It is a great ho­n­our to be­come part of the rich crick­et­ing tra­di­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go," he said.

"We will do every­thing to up­hold the tra­di­tion and thank all the peo­ple of Trin­ba­go in ad­vance for their pas­sion and sup­port."

The CPL draft is set to take place in Bar­ba­dos on Thurs­day ahead of the start of the 2016 cam­paign in June. (CMC)