Jaffna Stallions who won the inaugural LPL have been issued a termination letter for breach of contract 

• LPL Governing Committee to take a decision today

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The second edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) scheduled to be held from 29 July to 22 August has run into a roadblock where Pakistan and Bangladesh players will not be available due to commitments with their respective countries.

Out of nowhere, Pakistan has come up with an inaugural edition of the Kashmir Premier League which is due to run from 6-17 August and Australia has decided to tour Bangladesh.

“What worries us is the other leagues and the tours. We are internally discussing what to do, we haven’t taken a decision as yet,” said Sri Lanka Cricket Vice President Ravin Wickramaratne, who played the role of Tournament Director quite successfully in the inaugural edition last year.

“This Kashmir Premier League which was not in the schedule is being run by the Pakistani Government as a PR exercise and it prevents all Pakistani players from playing in the LPL. It has six teams and six overseas players of which TM Dilshan is one of them,” he said.  

“Then there is also Australia who is touring Bangladesh for a week (2-8 August) for five T20Is which means the Bangladesh players are also out. Last year also Bangladesh didn’t send their players for the LPL. They said they are having a domestic T20 tournament and made it compulsory that all the top players must play. However, the tournament didn’t take place.”

Wickramaratne said that there were about 630 players who registered for the LPL2 and of them 23 were from Bangladesh and around 60 from Pakistan. “We need only 30 foreign players and players like Shakib Al Hasan, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Irfan are big so we need them.”

Asked whether the LPL cannot be run with players from the other cricket playing countries who have registered, Wickramaratne replied: “You have to filter them first. Then there is also the CPL (Caribbean Premier League) happening (26 August – 15 September).  For the CPL bio bubble the players will have to be there by 14 August because they are starting on 26 August. Then by the middle of the tournament they might have to go, which is of no use.”

“We are discussing whether we can manage with the players. By tomorrow (Friday) we might take a decision. If we have to postpone it the possible window we are looking at is November-December,” said Wickramaratne. “The Player draft was to be held today (8 July), but we will not be going ahead with it. If we are going ahead with the tournament we will have the draft by 10 or 11 July.” A decision will be arrived at by the Governing Committee of LPL that comprises Chairman Shammi Silva, Mohan de Silva, Jayantha Dharmadasa, Ravin Wickramaratne, Prof. Arjuna de Silva, Uchitha Wickramasinghe and Ashley de Silva.

3 LPL teams issued termination letters

Meanwhile, in a new development Wickramaratne said that termination letters have been issued to three teams that took part in the inaugural LPL namely Colombo Kings, Dambulla Viikings and Jaffna Stallions who won the title, for breach of contract.

“SLC has nothing to do with it and it was up to the event sponsor IPG (Innovative Production Group) to issue the termination letters. But IPG has given the names of seven other potential franchise names for us to submit to the ICC, which we have done with the two surviving teams from last year,” said Wickramaratne.

Although the names of nine teams have been submitted to the ICC, Wickramaratne said that they would go with only five for LPL2 where the best five will be selected by IPG.

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