Euro T20 Slam organisers have announced that the players draft for the inaugural edition of the league will take place in London on 19th Jul, 2019. Players from around 20+ countries (around 700) have registered for the draft during the registration period.
Cricket Boards of Ireland, Scotland and Netherlands will provide the player names to be included in the draft. Each icon player will have a salary cap of $135,000, while the marquee players will have salary cap of $115,000. Dale Steyn (South Africa), Luke Ronchi (New Zealand), Babar Azam (Pakistan), JP Duminy (South Africa), Imran Tahir (South Africa) & Chris Lynn (Australia) have been announced as the Marquee players in the draft, while Eoin Morgan (England), Brendon McCullum (New Zealand), Rashid Khan (Afghanistan), Shahid Afridi (Pakistan), Shane Watson (Australia) and Martin Guptill (New Zealand) have been confirmed as the icon players in the draft.
There is strong possibility of now-retired Indian International, Yuvraj Singh, to also feature in the draft, after he was also drafted to play in the 2nd edition of GT20 Canada in Jul/Aug 2019, with the organisers for both the T20 leagues being the same. However, there is no mention of any “mandatory/fixed quota” picks for non-Ireland/Scotland/Netherlands associate players in the draft by the organisers, which was very much part of the draft for GT20 Canada.
The franchises (Amsterdam Knights, Rotterdam Rhinos, Edinburgh Rocks, Glasgow Giants, Dublin Chiefs and Belfast Titans) can pick a minimum of five and a maximum of seven overseas players from the price category of $80,000, $65,000, $50,000, $35,000 and $20,000 in their squads. Local players from Ireland, Scotland and Netherlands will be available at in the price categories of $35,000, $20,000 and $10,000. Each team will have a minimum of nine local players in their squad.
As per the playing XI rules, each team will have to field a maximum of five overseas players (including icon & marquee players as well) and a minimum of six local players. The league, intended to fuel growth of the sport in the respective countries, will help the pathway for domestic players to perform at an International stage and get recognized.
The tournament will be played in four blocks, with all six teams playing in Amsterdam between Aug 30th – Sep 05th, at The Grange between Sep 06th – 12th, and at Malahide between Sep 13th – 19th, followed by the semifinals and final at yet to be announced venues.
ET20S social media platforms (Twitter and Facebook) will live stream the player draft on 19th Jul 2019 from 10am (GMT) and 2:30pm (IST) onwards. The schedule for the inaugural edition of ET20 Slam can be found here.
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