LPL player registration begins on Monday

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) set to begin the registration of players who will participate in the 2nd edition of Lanka Premier League, on Monday (21st June).  

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Vice President of SLC Ravin Wickramaratne said that the player registration for LPL will be conducted from 21st June to 28th June where the players can register their names using an online platform. 

“We are opening the player registration on Monday and will keep it open up until June 28. The players can register using our online portal. Thereafter, probably in the first week of July, we will have the player draft,” Wickramaratne said. 

Read: Dates confirmed for 2nd Edition of LPL

SLC recently announced that the second edition of LPL will be played as planned from 30th July to 22nd August despite the spike in Covid-19 cases in the island. 

Wickramaratne mentioned that though there are suggestions from various parties to postpone the tournament, SLC is not willing to do so and has set plans to have it on schedule. 

“We will go ahead with the tournament as planned. There were various suggestions from various quarters to postpone it but we are not keen to do so. We need to have the continuity of the tournament to win the confidence of the franchises and the sponsors,” he added. 

Though there are uncertainties over the participation of previous franchise owners for this year’s edition, Wickramaratne is confident that they would come forward this year too. 

Read: Hambantota set to host 2nd edition of LPL

“Galle and Jaffna are on board and we are confident the rest of the owners will come forward this year too. Anyway, it’s IPG’s responsibility and we are trying to make all the logistical arrangements to hold a successful event like we did last year,” he explained. 

Kandy, Dambulla and Colombo are the other three franchise teams playing in LPL. The tournament will be played at Hambantota like in the previous year to ensure the safety of all the stakeholders involved in the tournament. 

“Initially, we were thinking of using three venues, but given the current situation, we are compelled to play it all in Hambantota. Logistically it’s easy for us to have the tournament there,” he further added. 

Jaffna Stallions won the inaugural LPL held last year defeating Galle Gladiators in the final which had a massive following on television and other digital platforms. According to the numbers given by SLC, the last year’s LPL final had been watched by 135 million viewers across all platforms.