IPL-style ‘Eliminator’ introduced for the first time in LPL 2

Jaffna and Dambulla have new owners and new names for LPL 2

• Matches to be played at 2 venues – Colombo and Hambantota
• Five teams, 24 matches, 20 days of non-stop action
• Dates and venues finalised for Sri Lanka’s top-most domestic tournament 
• Final to have reserve day

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The second edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL), which is scheduled to take place from 5-23 December, promises to be bigger and brighter with new features introduced similar to the celebrated Indian Premier League (IPL), and will be played at two venues.

The same five teams – Jaffna, Galle, Colombo, Dambulla and Kandy – will play, but on this occasion, the first round of the tournament, consisting of 20 matches out of a total of 24, will be played at the R. Premadasa Stadium – Colombo (RPICS) from 5-17 December. 

The tournament will then move to the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium – Hambantota (MRICS) for the final round phase, which will take place from 20-23 December that includes the final.

The final round will for the first time consist of play-offs like in the IPL. The top two teams in the league points table will play in ‘Qualifier 1’, and the third and fourth placed teams in the table will play in an ‘Eliminator’. The winner of Qualifier 1 will go directly into the final, whilst the loser of Qualifier 1 will play against the winner of the eliminator in ‘Qualifier 2’. The winner of that game will go into the final and play the winner of Qualifier 1.

The final scheduled for 23 December will for the first time have a reserve day – 24 December.

When the registration of the international cricketers draft closed on 7 October, a total of 699 players from around the world applied, and subsequently, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) issued a list of 225 players whose applications were approved for the Player draft, which is scheduled to take place on 27 October.

A LPL franchise team is permitted to have a maximum of six foreign players in a squad of 20.

West Indies (19) and Pakistan (18) have the highest number of applications followed by England with 11, Bangladesh and South Africa eight each, India and Zimbabwe three each, and Australia and New Zealand two each. The tournament commences on 5 December at the R. Premadasa Stadium with last year’s finalists Jaffna and Galle playing in the curtain-raiser at 7:30 p.m. shortly after the opening ceremony, which is due to commence at 3.30 pm. Jaffna, led by former Sri Lanka all-rounder Thisara Perera, won the final beating Galle captained by Bhanuka Rajapaksa by 53 runs to become the first holders of the LPL trophy.

While Nadeem Omar continues to be the owner of Galle Gladiators, Dambulla and Jaffna have acquired new ownership of the franchise. 

London-based HAMRO CEO Q. Khan is the new owner of Dambulla, who have changed their name from Dambulla Viiking to Dambulla Giants, while Sri Lanka-born British entrepreneur Allirajah Subaskaran has acquired the ownership of Jaffna Stallions, who will now go by the name of Jaffna Kings.