Fans of the emerging game were left wanting after no Associate players beyond Sandeep Lamichhane were selected outside the designated ICC Americas round in the draft for the seventh edition of the Caribbean Premier League in London today.
The leg-spinning sensation from Nepal was drafted in round 5 by the Barbados Tridents for US$70,000. This represents a 1,300 percentage increase on his 2018 fee when was selected by St Kitts & Nevis Patriots eight rounds later than today.
His CPL base salary is around two and a half times what he received from the Delhi Capitals for the 2019 Indian Premier League.
After his breakthrough 2018 season, Ali Khan was retained by the defending champions Knight Riders for the round’s base fee of $3,000.
Khan was joint-third wicket-taker last year.
Canadian spinning all-rounder Nitish Kumar makes a return to the CPL. He played two matches for the Zouks in 2016 and returns for the St Lucia team, who were renamed the Stars in 2017.
Last season Saurabh Netravalkar was been drafted by Guyana but had been unable to take up the post due to his work commitments as a software engineer for Oracle in New York. Today, however (and after being somewhat comically called out as a “batting pick” by host Darren Ganga) he was the Amazon Warriors’ ICC Americas pick again.
Former West Indies Test representative, now-USA player Xavier Marshall will return to his country of birth to represent the Jamaica Tallawahs and Aaron Jones joins St Kitts & Nevis.
Hayden Walsh Jnr joined the Patriots ahead of last season last year as the replacement for Zimbabwean Graeme Cremer but alongside Lamichhane he will move from St Kitts & Nevis to the Barbados franchise.
Despite being named as an icon player for the schedule-overlapping Euro T20 Slam Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan remained in the CPL draft but was not picked up – nor was his compatriot Mujeeb ur Rahman. Afghan left-arm wrist spinner Zahir Khan was selected by Jamaica in the same round as Sandeep, however.
Former Mumbai Indians wicketkeeper batter and now Canadian captain Davy Jacobs went unsold.
