The Player Draft of the inaugural edition of the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) was held at Crowne Plaza Hotel on Saturday. Team India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was bought by the Dindigul franchise, while Dinesh Karthik went to Thoothukudi and Murali Vijay to Coimbatore.
The draft ceremony, which was conducted by former India leg-spinner L Sivaramakrishnan, saw the eight franchises pick a total of 151 players. Every franchise, except the Coimbatore one owned by Lyca Productions, selected 19 players. Coimbatore have 18 in the bag.
Each franchise was required to select two players each from the districts as well as the Under-19 category. Washington Sundar was the first Under-19 player to be picked. He went to the Thoothukudi franchise.
The TNPL has requested the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to allow outstation players to take part in the league. TNPL Chairman PS Raman informed that he was hopeful of a favourable outcome. “I have spoken to Mr. Ajay Shirke, the Honorary Secretary of the BCCI. If the BCCI allows outstation players, then the teams will get to pick two more players,” he said.
This will, of course, increase the squad strength to 21. Several outstation players are employed in Tamil Nadu and have been playing in tournaments conducted by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association for several years. “There are 25 such players. They will be allowed back into the Player Draft if the BCCI gives its nod of approval,” Mr. Raman added.
The tournament will be from August 27th-September 18th. The winners will take home Rs 1 crore while the runners-up will receive 60 lakh. The third and fourth placed teams will receive 40 lakh each. The total prize money on offer is Rs 3.40 crore.
The final player list for the eight franchises is as follows:
Thoothukudi: Dinesh Karthik, L Balaji, Washington Sundar, Aswinathisayaraj Dav Crist, Abhinav Mukund, Aushik Srinivas, Kaushik Gandhi, Anand Subramanian, Akash Sumra, Sathyanarayan R, Sushil U, Ganesh Moorthi M, Athisayaraj Davidson, Maaruthi Raghav, Vishaal R, Siddarth S Ahuja, Lakshman V, Nathan SP, Nicul Anand
Chepauk: R Sathish, Yo Mahesh, Thalaivan Sargunam, Anthony Dhas, Gopinath, Sai Kishore, Sasidev, Joel Joseph, Tamil Kumaran, Alaxander R, Vasanth Saravanan S, Rahul B, Ashwath Mukunthan, Karthik S, Rajeel Abdul Rahman, Nirmal Kumar, Vasudevan, Aditya Barooah, Shibi Jawahar
Coimbatore: Murali Vijay, Syed Mohammed, Mohammed M, Suryap Prakash L, Vijay Shankar, Siva Kumar, Rohith R, Vignesh K, Anirudh Sita Ram, Ajith Ram, Harish Kumar, Akshay V Srinivasan, Arun B, Anchit D, Kamalesh M, Tarun Srinivas, Adhithya Giridhar, Gowtham Thamarai
Madurai: Arun Karthick, Suresh Kumar, Thiyagarajan, Francis Rokins, Chandrasekar, Vignesh Ganapathi, Raja M, Shijit Chandran, Vignesh L, Maan K Bafna, Muruganantham S, Aswin Kumar, Amarnath, Varun Narendar, Sakthi P, Anton Andrew Subikshan, Mihir R, Edward Kennedy, Madhu C
Kancheepuram: Indrajith B, Koushik J, Jesuraj R, Shahrukh Khan M, Bharath Shankar, Prathiban, Varun Kumar, Prabhu M, Kaushik J, Ganesh L, Adithya Ganesh, Siddharth S, Suthesh T, Nilesh Subramanian, Akkil Srinaath, Pradosh Ranjan Paul, Mitchell Anthony, Trilok Nag, Aditya B
Tiruvallur: Aparjith B, Abhishek Tanwar, Rahil S Shah, Kavin R, Chaturved NS, Malolan Rangarajan, Rohit R, Jaganath Sinivas, Vignesh GV, Sanjay Yadav, Arun S, Samruddh Bhat, Hari Nishaanth, Lakshminarayanan, Govindaraj, Silambarasan, Mukilesh, Samuel S, Santosh Shiv
Dindigul: R Ashwin, Ashwin M, Natarajan, Sanjay MS, Jagadeesan N, Ganga Sridhar Raju, Subramania Siva, Sunny Kumar Singh, Mukunth, Wilkins Victor, Ashwin Venkataraman, Shyam Sundar, Dinesh S, Yazh Arul Mozhi, Prashant Prabhu, Abhishek, Vivek, Adithya Arun, Silambarasan
Karaikudi: Badrinath, Aniruda, Sunil Sam, Suresh Babu, Lokeshwar, Ganapathi Chandrasekar, Shoaib MD Khan, Vishal Vaidhya, Sonu Yadav, Rajkumar, Mohan Prasath, Vijay Kumar, Abhinav M, Jerome A, Srinivasan R, Kiran Akash, Sujay S, Swaminathan S, Shahjahan.
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