KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 11

The six participating teams of the inaugural NepalT20, the official premier league of Cricket Association of Nepal, picked up 11 cricketers each from the two rounds of players' draft here today.

The teams had picked up marquee players from Grade A in the first round of draft yesterday, while they acquired 10 others from Grade B and Grade C today, except for Pokhara Avengers, who had picked up two players from Grade A on Saturday.

The CAN has allotted Rs 1.5 million, one million rupees and Rs 500,000 respectively for the players in three categories.

The Avengers, who bought Aasif Sheikh as marquee player and Sharad Vesawkar as the second player from Grade A yesterday, picked up Kushal Malla, Pratish GC and Aarif Sheikh from Grade B.

Likewise, they bought Tul Bahadur Thapa, Bishal Bikram KC, Krishna Karki, Bipin Khatri, Sumit Maharjan and Siddhant Lohoni from Grade C. The five foreigners in Avengers squad included Mohammad Hafeez, Seekkuge Prasana, Niroshan Dickwella, Salman Irshad and Shehan Madhushanka.

The Biratnagar Superkings, who got national team vice-captain Rohit Kumar Paudel as marquee player, bought Arjun Saud, Nandan Yadav, Bibek Kumar Yadav and Shahab Alam from Grade B. Also, they acquired six cricketers - Amar Singh Rautela, Narayan Joshi, Surya Tamang, Pradeep Singh Airee, Prithu Baskota and Rijan Dhakal - from Grade C.

They will have the services of Angelo Mathews, Joshua Persuad, Andre McCarthy, Gauranshu Sharma, Minod Ranasinghe and Keon Joseph under foreign quota of five cricketers.

The Kathmandu Gurkhas, with former national team skipper Gyanendra Malla as marquee players, bought four cricketers - Lokesh Bahadur Bam, Basir Ahmad, Kamal Singh Airee and Abinash Bohora - Grade B. Likewise, the team got Anil Kharel, Saurav Khanal, Sandeep Rajali, Santosh Karki, Sunam Gautam and Gautam KC from Grade C. They have acquired Thisara Parera, Darshanpriya S Weerakkody, Kamindu Mendis, Virandeep Singh and Dhananjaya Dsilva in foreigner quota.

The Lumbini All Stars bought Anil Kumar Shah, Kushal Bhurtel, Gulshan Kumar Jha and Sagar Dhakal from Grade B, while they acquired Yogendra Singh Karki, Kishor Mahato, Tilak Raj Bhandari, Sunil Dhamala, Akash Chand and Ishan Pandey from Group C. The All Stars, who had bought Dipendra Sing Airee as marquee player yesterday, will have Ben Cutting, Rakheem Cornwall, Pat Brown, Bipul Sharma, Lahiru Milantha and Nuwan Tushara as foreign cricketers.

Another team, the Janakpur Royals, who have Sompal Kami as marquee player, bought Sanjeep Jora, Md Aadil Alam, Dilip Nath and Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi from Grade B. They bought six cricketers - Sushan Bhari, Sagar Pun, Pawan Sarraf, Jitendra Kumar Mukhiya, Khadak Bohora and Rajesh Pulami from Grade C. Adam Lyth, Trevon Abashai Griffth, Ibrahim Zadran, Raj Rocky Nannan and Subhashinge Priyanjan have joined Royals in foreigners quota.

Likewise, the Farwestern United acquired Binod Bhandari, Bhim Sharki, Dev Khanal and Rashid Khan from Grade B, while they bought Durgesh Gupta, Bhuwan Karki, Hari Shankar Shah, Sher Malla, Basant Karki, Prakash Jaisi and Hashim Ansari from Grade C. The United had bought Karan KC as marquee player. They have signed Carlos Brathwaite, Dushan Hemantha, Pulina Tharanga, Jason Mohammad, Allah Ghazanfar and Zia-ul Rehman under the quota of foreign cricketers.

Five cricketers from Grade A - Binod Bhandari, Md Arif Sheikh, Abinash Bohara, Kushal Bhurtel and Subash khakurel - had failed to attract bids in the first round of players' draft yesterday and they were automatically included in Grade B. Among the five cricketers, only Khakurel remained unsold in the draft. The CAN had included a total of 92 cricketers - 12 in Grade A, 33 in Grade B and 47 in Grade C - in three categories for the players' draft. The inaugural edition of the NepalT20 is scheduled for September 24 to October 22 in Kathmandu.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 12, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.