As many as five players from Myanmar, namely Swan Htet Ko Ko, Thu Ya Aung, Aung Ko Ko, Ye Ko Ko Aung and Muthukrishnan Palani, have been shortlisted to play in the inaugural edition of Cambodian Premier League (CPL) T20 tournament in January 2021. The Cricket Association of Cambodia (CAC) announced the names of the 45 players (local and overseas), who will take part in the tournament.
CAC will further conduct trials in Cambodia and overseas in the coming months to select further players for the competition. The selected 45 players will be composing four of the six teams that will compete in the CPL T20, while the trails will be held to identify players for the remaining two teams. The tournament was originally scheduled to take place in September 2020, but due to COVID-19 pandemic, the event was postponed to next year.
Two players from Philippines (Vikramjit Sharma and Ajeet Kumar Munna), along with Bishal Bhusal of Nepal and Mohammad Tariq of the UAE are also featuring in the list of 45 names announced by CAC. Mr Vath Chamroeun, President of the CAC, and also the secretary-general of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia, said that the success of such an event, the first of its kind in the region of ASEAN and Indochina, will be a success for all Cambodians.
15 players in the list of 45 include Cambodians and foreigners residing in the Kingdom under long-term visas, namely Asanka Gunarathna, Pradeep Kumar Singh, Uday Singh, Shivam Singh, Mangesh Singh, Rahul Ahamed Syed, Hasith Chamara, Manoj Priyananda, U. Dinik Naveen, Nirmaljit Singh Minhas, Sandeep Tewari, Manish Sharma, Madhu Sharma and Muralidhar Varma.
This will be a rare opportunity for Myanmar players to play in a franchise-based T20 league and although Cambodia in a non-Associate country, the experience will come handy for the chosen players, who represented Myanmar in the ICC World Twenty20 Asia Region Qualifier “B” event held in Thailand in October 2018, where they played against the likes of Nepal, Malaysia and Singapore.
Cambodia and Myanmar cricket boards have a healthy relationship with Cambodia national side visiting the country in January 2020 to play a series (Anawrahta Cricket Series 2020) of matches in both 50-overs and T20 formats.
