VB Thiruvallur Veerans captain Baba Aparajith, coach B Arun and owner VB Chandrasekhar during the 2017 India Cements Ltd. TNPL Player Draft at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai, on Friday. Picture credit: TNPL
All-rounder M Shah Rukh Khan became the first player to be picked at the Player Draft of India Cements Ltd. TNPL (Season 2) at the ITC Grand Chola, Chennai, on Friday. Khan moved from Ruby Trichy Warriors to Madurai Super Giant. Madurai got the advantage of choosing players first, after finishing at the bottom of the table last year. They picked nine players, one in each round.
The teams had to pick players from three categories – Under-19, District and City — in the hour-long affair conducted by TNPL Governing Council member L Sivaramakrishnan. Albert TUTI Patriots, the defending champions, were the only team with their squad full. Given that they retained the winning squad, Patriots did not pick anyone at the Player Draft on Friday.
Another notable pick was S Radhakrishnan, a member of the India Under-19 squad, who went to last year’s finalists, Chepauk Super Gillies. Even though the all-rounder will not be available for a major part of the tournament, head coach Hemang Badani insisted that the franchise was keen on investing in the player. R Suthesh, a 30-year-old left-arm pacer, was their other key pick.
VB Chandrasekhar snapped impromptu during the 2017 India Cements Ltd. TNPL Player Draft at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai, on Friday. Picture credit: TNPL
Dindigul Dragons retained southpaw S Dinesh and roped in Kishan Kumar and a back-up wicketkeeper in A Aarif. Karaikudi Kaalai concentrated on improving their bowling resources as they bought Shikhar Hukku, Trilok Nag, Ashish Sri Krishnan, Varun Chakravarthy and 15-year old Nivethan Radhakrishnan.
Ruby Trichy Warriors and VB Thiruvallur Veerans, led by twins Baba Indrajith and Baba Aparajith respectively, also made minor tweaks to their teams. Trichy bought K Vignesh, Adithya Giridhar, Jabez Moses and Under-19 players Mokit Hariharan and Prashid Akash. Veerans, on the other hand, roped in wicketkeeper R Rajan, S Siddharth and Ashwin Kumar. Pradosh Ranjan Paul, Manish Ravi, Siddharth, Deepan Lingesh made it to the LYCA Kovai Kings squad.
S Badrinath, captain of Karaikudi Kaalai, and team owner Ramaswamy Chettiar caught candid during the 2017 India Cements Ltd. TNPL Player Draft at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai, on Friday. Picture credit: TNPL
The TNPL is set to yet again unleash a barrage of budding cricketers from both the cities and districts of Tamil Nadu. Season 2 promises to be bigger and better.
