The Tamil Nadu Premier League 2018 player draft has been announced and it sees the debut of all-rounder Vijay Shankar. Shankar missed the previous edition on TNPL due to injury and will play for Chepauk Super Gillies in this edition of the tournament.
The Tamil Nadu all-rounder is expected to be available for the business end of the tournament, as he will be on international duty for India on the England tour.
Washington Sundar has been brought back by Tuti Patriots while Dinesh Karthik will ply his trade for iDream Karaikudi Kaalai. The ’keeper-batsman had previously played for Tuti Patriots.
Both Karthik and Sundar will also miss the first week of the tournament owing to them being on the tour to England. However, if either or both of them is chosen for the Test series also, then they will miss the whole tournament.
Murali Vijay and Abhinav Mukund were picked up by Ruby Trichy Warriors and Lyca Kovai Kings respectively. R Satish who led Chepauk to success last year will now play for Tuti Patriots. T. Natarajan moves to Lyca Kovai Kings and Murugan Ashwin moves to Chepauk Super Gillies.
Earlier, each of the eight teams had retained three players ahead of the draft. A total of 772 players had registered for the draft.
Briefing franchise officials earlier, N. Srinivasan, Executive Committee member, TNCA said, “It is very important that we have faith in the TNPL, that we will do everything possible to enhance the quality and the substance of the league. We will not spare any effort in this regard.”
SQUADS:
Tuti Patriots - Washington Sundar, Kaushik Gandhi, Sai Kishor R., R. Sathish, Athisayaraj Davidson V., Akshay Srinivasan, Malolan Rangarajan, Ashith Rajiv, U. Sushil, Dinesh S., Abishiek S., Venkatesh A., Nidish S., R. Jesuraj, S. Boopalan, S. Shubham Mehta.
Retained: Anand Subramanian, Akash Sumra and Ganesh Moorthy.
Chepauk Super Gillies - Vijay Shankar, Gopinath K.H., M. Ashwin, Harish Kumar S., Ganga Sridhar Raju, Sunny Kumar Singh, Samruddh Bhat, Arun Kumar V., Vishaal R., Rahul B., Siddharth M., Arun B., Aarif A., M.K. Sivakumar, Manav Parakh, B. Sai Sudharsan.
Retained: S. Karthik, U. Sasidev and R.K. Alexander.
Lyca Kovai Kings - Anthony Das, Natarajan T., Abhinav Mukund, K. Vignesh, Shahrukh Khan M., Akkil Srinaath, Suresh Kumar J., Mithun R., Suresh Babu, Sumant Jain, Rajesh M.P., Ashwin Venkataraman, M. Raja, R. Sathyanarayan, Mohammed Adnan Khan, S. Manikandan.
Retained: Rohith Ravikumar, Pradosh Ranjan Paul and S Ajith Ram.
Siechem Madurai Panthers - Varun C.V., Abhishek Tanwar, Rahil Shah, Thalaivan Sargunam X., Kousik J., Jagannath R.S., Nilesh S., Rohit D., S.P. Nathan, Tushar Raheja, Kiran Akash L., Lokesh Raj T.D., S.S. Karnavar, Vikkram Jangid, M.S. Promoth, P.S. Shivaramakrishnan.
Retained: K.B. Arun Karthik, Shijit Chandran and R. Karthikeyan.
Trichy Warriors - Sonu Yadav, Sanjay M.S., Murali Vijay, C. Ganapathi, Suresh Kumar S., Vasanth Saravanan, Aravind S., Lakshminarayanan M., Vignesh L., Chandrasekar D.T., Aswin Crist A., Mani Bharathy K., Saravana Kumar P., A.S. Govinda Raajan, R.S. Thillak, V. Aakash.
Retained: B. Indrajith, Bharath Shankar, and K. Vignesh.
VB Kanchi Veerans - Lokeshwar S., Vishal Vaidhya. K. Aushik Srinivas R., Subramania Siva, Mukilesh U., Sunil Sam, S. Arun, Deeban Lingesh K., Francis Rokins P., Siddharth S., Divakar R., Mokit Hariharan, S. Chandrasekhar, S. Ashwath, U. Vishal, Shriram C.
Retained: Baba Aparajith.
Dindigul Dragons - Chaturved N.S., Hari Nishaanth C., Anirudh Sita Ram B., Mohammed M., Rohit R., Adithya Arun, Abhinav M, Silambarasan, Trilok Nag, Yazh Arun Mozhi, Sujendran M, Kaushik J, N Ramakrishnan, Ra Aravind, Nivethan Radhakrishnan, Varun M Totatri.
Retained: R Ashwin, N. Jagadeesan and R. Vivek.
IDream Karaikudi Kaalai - Dinesh Karthik, Aniruda.S, V. Yo Mahesh, R Kavin, L. Suryap Prakash, Lakshman, Aaditya.V, Kishan Kumar S, Radhakrishnan, Maan K Bafna, Ashwath Mukunthan, Swaminathan S., Ajith Kumar T., S. Ganesh, R. Srinivasan, P. Murugesh.
Retained: R Rajkumar, M Shajahan and S. Mohan Prasath.
