DPL's dull draft today
In editions past, the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) had generated a lot of excitement, suspense, drama and above all festivity. With the continuation of the much-reviled lottery-based players' transfer, called 'player-by-choice', will people look back wistfully to the days when the players' transfer garnered much interest in the negotiations between the powerful clubs and players?
Only time will tell whether those days are gone forever but at least for this season a dull players' transfer is going to take place this morning at a local hotel. A total of 11 clubs have already confirmed two old players as the new system allows them to retain two players and those selected players will not be included in the lottery. The promoted Gazi Group Cricketers were the only team who did not retain any player and the lottery will start with their selection of two players from six categories out of eight as they will not be allowed to pick players from the Icon and A+ groups.
Today 12 Premier League clubs will pick their choice of players from the list of 188 players divided into eight categories -- Icon (fixed salary of Tk 30 lakh), A+ (fixed salary of Tk 25 lakh), A (Tk 20 lakh), B+ (Tk 15 lakh), B (Tk 12 lakh), C (Tk 8 lakh), D (Tk 5 lakh) and E (Tk 3.5 lakh).
Prime Bank Cricket Club retained Nurul Hasan Sohan (A) and Shuvagata Hom (A) from their previous squad while Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club confirmed Rony Talukdar (A) and Sanjamul Islam (B+), Abahani: Liton Das (A) and Mosaddek Hossain Saikat (B+); Kalabagan Cricket Academy: Mehedi Hasan Miraz (B+) and Mahmudul Hasan (B+); Mohammedan: Naeem Islam (A) and Ariful Haque (B+); Legend of Rupganj: Jahurul Islam (A) and Mosharraf Hossain (A), Victoria: Nadif Chowdhury (B+) and Suhrawardi Shuvo (B+); Brothers Union: Asif Hasan (B+) and Iftekhar Rony (C); Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi: Shohag Gazi (B+) and Arafat Sunny (A); Kalabagan KC: Abdur Razzak (A) and Tasamul Haque (B) and Cricket Coaching School: Saif Hasan (B) and Mohammad Saifuddin (B).
The Icon players are Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Imrul Kayes, Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah Riyad and Shabbir Rahman while Soumya Sarkar, Mustafizur Rahman, Mominul Haque, Mohammad Mithun, Nasir Hossain and Anamul Haque have been drafted in the A+ category.
Shakib and Mustafizur were included in the list but they are unlikely to be available for the competition because of their ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) commitments as the DPL is set to kick off from April 22. So it would be interesting to see whether any club picks the two prolific players.
As left-arm spinner Arafat Sunny was already confirmed by his old club, Taskin Ahmed -- the other bowler suspended from international cricket by ICC for an illegal action -- was drafted in category A along with Shahriar Nafees, Rubel Hossain and Shamsur Rahman. Another suspended bowler, spinner Sanjit Saha, was included in category C.
Shahadat Hossain is in category B but he will not be available as the pacer was suspended by the board since he has been fighting a legal battle in a case in which he has been charged under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.
A club has to pick a minimum of 10 players from the long list.
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