The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) demanded that 10 national players including former captains Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and Kusal Janith Perera be included in the second Lanka Premier League (LPL) Twenty20 franchise cricket tournament starting on December 5.
SLC, the country’s cricket governing body forwarded the names of Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Kusal Janith Perera, Dhananjaya de Silva, Akila Dananjaya, Praveen Jayawickrama, Minod Bhanuka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan and Shiran Fernando who were opted out from the selection by the LPL franchise holders.
While making mandatory to include the ten players including those who were in the Sri Lanka’s T20 squad now being played at the ongoing T20 World cup, to the series, the SLC directed franchisees to pick two players each for the five teams.
The SLC has stated that it as the governing body of the LPL has observed that franchise owners have opted not to select certain national players and some young players who play excellent domestic cricket and are considered potential future stars.
“Considering the above deficiency and in the interest of the game of cricket in Sri Lanka, the Governing Council of the Lanka Premier League 2021 decided to forward the names of 10 deserving players, who missed out during the Player draft, to all the franchise owners, and make it ‘mandatory’ for each franchise to select two players out of the given 10 into their squad, thus expanding the squad strength from 20 to 22,” the SLC said in a statement.
The SLC had said that for this year’s edition, 673 applications were received from foreign players and 358 from local cricketers who were keen to represent the domestic presence at the LPL.
“Accordingly, a total of 1,031 players (local and overseas) went into the draft, whilst the ‘Right’ of selecting the suitable and desirous players for the 20 member squads, was solely vested with the ‘Franchise Owners’ subject to compliance with the guidelines set by the SLC,” it stated.
It was reported that 74 international cricketers including Imran Tahir, Mohammad Amir, Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Dawid Malan and Faf du Plessis, Mohammad Hafeez and Tabraiz Shamsi were drafted in by various teams.
