The Asian Premier League (APL) Twenty20 organisers held its auction on Monday as the absence of Nepal’s top notch cricketers continues to irk organisers.

Ultimate Sports Management, a Chandigarh-based company, said five Nepali cricketers were sold in the auction for Nepal Storm, a franchise belonging to Encore Infrastructure Pvt Ltd of New Zealand whose owner is Matthew Lim, said the organisers.

The Nepali players sold in the auction were Bhupendra Thapa, Siddhant Raj Shahi, Amar Singh Routela and Rajbir Singh where as former international cricketer Paresh Lohani is the iconic player in the team. Country’s national team cricketers, however, have already said they are unaware of the tournament.

“We had kept the registrations open for all the cricketers six months earlier. We don’t have any idea about why the national team cricketers didn’t register for the tournament,” said RS Dandiwal, Chairman of APL who was sitting alongside inconic players Tillakaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka, Rana Naved Ul Hasan and Imran Nazir of Pakistan and Haseeb Amjad of Hong Kong.

Dandiwal said the tournament is not approved by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as it was going to take more than a six-month time to do that. “Since this tournament was shifted from the United Arab Emirates, we kept working on bringing this event to Nepal. We were told to seek approval from either the ICC or ACC (Asian Cricket Council) but it would have taken a lot of time,” said Dandiwal adding he had approached only two national team cricketers for the tournament.

“We first talked to Sompal Kami but he said he was going to play a tournament in India at that time. And we also sent a message to skipper Paras (Khadka) but he didn’t reply. We had not approached other players individually. The National Sports Council had mediated for us in getting broadcasting rights from the ministry,” said Dandiwal.

Dilshan, who will be leading the Indian stars, said the event was only going to benefit Nepal. “This is a good format, specially for the youngsters. There are few young Sri Lankans in our team and they are excited. I am excited as well. I want to pass all my experience of international cricket to them. All of us should take pride of getting this tournament in Nepal. They can prepare their youngsters for it,” said the Sri Lankan legend.

Cpan expresses concern

The Cricket Players Association Nepal (Cpan) on Monday expressed its concern over holding of the Asian Premier League Twenty20 in Nepal. “While we appreciate that a tournament of this scale is being held in Kathmandu, we are utterly dismayed by the fact that there will be no involvement of Nepalese Players and officials in the tournament,” said a press release.

“Professional league anywhere in the world set up should bind to follow ICC anti corruption law for the smooth flow of the game. The whole event is being organised in in-transparent way, as we don’t know much about organiser, team owners and other financial details. We hope concerned people will make it transparent to all local stakeholders of Nepali cricket,” Cpan general secretary Paras Khadka said in the release. (PR)