Sports
KC, Sheikh, Regmi, Pun earn big
Karan KC, Aarif Sheikh, Basanta Regmi and Sagar Pun drew the largest sum during the auction of the second Dhangadi Premier League (DPL) in Kathmandu on Wednesday.Karan KC, Aarif Sheikh, Basanta Regmi and Sagar Pun drew the largest sum during the auction of the second Dhangadi Premier League (DPL) in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
The six-team franchise based Twenty20 cricket tournament is set to begin at the SSP grounds in Dhangadi from March 31 with the champions receiving a cash purse of Rs 2.5 million—the highest cash prize to be handed over to the champions of a domestic cricket tournament.
All the four expensive players went for maximum bidding price of Rs 150,000 under Category ‘A’ which included cricketers with an experience of competing in at least 15 international matches or have played national tournament for three years. Veteran allrounder Mehboob Alam was the big name that went unsold having previously lined up among the expensive players.
While Regmi went to Paras Khadka’s Biratnagar Kings, KC and Aarif were sold to Mahendranagar United, which has Binod Bhandari as the strategic player. Pun went to Shakti Gauchan’s Rupandehi Challengers. Dipendra Singh Airee (CYC Attariya), Gyanendra Malla (Kathmandu Goldens) and Sompal Kami (Team Chauraha Dhangadi) are other strategic players. The strategic players were set a base price of Rs 200,000 and were bought by franchises under personal negotiations.
KC attracted all six owners to make bids for him among Category ‘A’ players. From Category ‘B’, young and exciting talent Rohit Kumar Paudel and Amar Singh Routela from Category ‘C’ were the only two cricketers to draw attention of all franchises.
The players reaching maximum bid and attracting more than one bidder were decided through lucky draw. Khadka was the luckiest one who got hold of some of the big names in domestic cricket including Regmi, Pawan Sarraf, Saurabh Khanal, Dilip Nath, Ramnaresh Giri and newly found allround cricketer Anil Kumar Sah.
Khadka, however, refrained from calling his squad the strongest one. “I wouldn’t say this is a dream squad for us because there are other good players in the team. We have a good team and it would be interesting to see how we fare in Dhangadi,” said Khadka. The franchises on Wednesday made bid for 12 cricketers, 11 categorised and one from talent hunt.
Subodh Ayer (Kings), Roman Bam (Attariya), Bikram Thagunna (Goldens), Narayan Joshi (United), Prakash Jaisi (Challengers) and Bijay Rana (Sompal Kami) were the players purchased from talent hunt. While Jaisi was paid Rs 15,000 and Rana went for Rs 10,000, rests were bought for Rs 25,000.
Prithu Baskota and Budhayer, who went to Goldens, were the next best earners at Rs 120,000. The franchises had a total purse of Rs 1.1 million and Kings were the biggest spenders with Rs 995,000. Attariya saved Rs 265,000 from their total purse. Manjeet Shrestha, Sanjam Regmi, Chandra Saud, Raju Rijal, Sandeep Sunar and Bhim Sharki were some big names to go unsold in the first round of auction. Shrestha, however, went to Kings for a base price of Rs 75,000 and Rijal was bought by Dhangadi for Rs 50,000 from their wish-list.
DPL is Nepal’s first auction-based cricket tournament at the national level organised by Dhangadi Cricket Academy. The participating teams will play each other in a single round robin league before the top four make it to the playoffs. The top two teams will meet in the first Qualifier from where the winners will enter the final.
The losers of the first Qualifier will take on the winners of the Eliminator match between third and fourth-placed teams in the second Qualifier for another shot to secure a berth in the final. The runners-up will get Rs 1 million and the player of the series will ride a motorcycle.
Highest Earners
Cash Players
Rs 150,000 Basanta Regmi, Karan KC, Aarif Sheikh, Sagar Pun
Rs 120,000 Prithu Baskota, Naresh Budhayer
Rs 100,000 Pawan Sarraf, Ramnaresh Giri, Saurav Khanal, Dilip Nath, Anil Kumar Sah, Kushal Bhurtel, Krishna Karki, Lalit Rajbanshi, Amit Shrestha, Kishor Mahato, Shahab Alam, Bhuwan Karki, Rohit Kumar Paudel, Bikram Kumar Bhushal, Sushan Bhari Shrestha, Siddhant Lohani, Yogendra Singh Karki, Lalit Singh Bhandari, Sonu Tamang, Sunil Dhamala
Rs 95,000 Santosh Bhatta, Hari Shankar Sah
Rs 90,000 Sandeep Jhora, Jitendra Mukhiya