LPL Player Draft today

• 273 overseas players and 165 from Sri Lanka

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

A total of 438 cricketers will figure in the Lanka Premier League (LPL) Player Draft which is due to take place on zoom from four p.m. today. It is open for the five franchises, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and IPG.

Sri Lanka has a list of 165 players that includes all the contracted and central contracted cricketers, whilst from overseas there are 273.

Amongst the current overseas stars who will figure in the Player Draft are South Africans Vernon Philander and Temba Bavuma; England’s Liam Plunkett; Brendan Taylor, Craig Ervine, Kyle Jarvis, Sean Williams and Sikandar Raza from Zimbabwe; Kevin O’Brien and Boyd Rankin from Ireland; Shai Hope and Jonathan Carter from West Indies; Asif Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Hassan Ali, Ifthikar Ahmed, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Amir, Sarfraz Ahmed, Shoaib Malik, Imad Wasim, Wahab Riaz and Abid Ali from Pakistan and Asghar Afghan, Dawlat Zadran, Gulbadin Naib, Hazratullah Zazai, Karim Janat, Najibullah Zadran, Samiullah Shinwari from Afghanistan.

A host of former cricketers have also shown interest in playing in the LPL. Among them are Darren Sammy, Johnson Charles, Dwayne Smith, Fidel Edwards, Ravi Rampaul, Jason Mohammad from West Indies; Todd Astle and Neil Broom from New Zealand; Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Samit Patel and Steve Finn from England; Richard Levi from South Africa; Pragyan Ojha from India; Graeme Cremer from Zimbabwe; Ryan ten Doeschate from Netherlands; Mohammad Shazad from Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Umar Gul, Anwar Ali, Imran Nazir, Kamran Akmal, Khurram Manzoor, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Sami, Sharjeel Khan and Sohail Tanveer.

All the overseas players who have made themselves available for the Player Draft have given their consent to undergo the 14 days quarantine period, which is a Sri Lankan government requirement for any person travelling into the country. Each team can have a maximum of six overseas players in the squad but only four can play at any given time. A squad will comprise of 16 players.

The LPL is due to take place from 21 November to 13 December and played at two venues – Pallekele and Hambantota, amongst five franchise teams named after the cities of Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Dambulla and Jaffna. A total of 23 matches will be played over a 15-day period.