Martin Guptill and Lendl Simmons among the biggest names in CPL 2018 player draft

The first round of the Caribbean Premier League 2018 player drafts was held on Thursday (March 1), in which New Zealand opener Martin Guptill and his West Indian counterpart Lendl Simmons were the names that made the most noise. While the Barbados Tridents franchise picked the Kiwi opener for a contract of UDS 160,000, the Windies performer was selected by the St Lucia Stars for USD 70,000.

Among the stars who were retained by the franchise, they played last year were Jamaica Tallawah’s Andre Russell, St Kitts’ Chris Gayle, Knight Riders’ Dwayne Bravo and the others.

Kieron Pollard goes big 

A total of six teams will contest the tournament, and each team can have a maximum of 18 players. On the first day of the drafts, 47 players were picked from the drafts while 61 were already retained. The tournament is being played since five years, but this year, the draft saw the most transfers in its history. The bigger transfer was that of Kieron Pollard, who led the Barbados Tridents for the past four seasons, but he asked the franchise to release him, St Lucia Stars made the most of his availability and snapped him for a whopping. $130,000.

Among those who did not enter the drafts by already negotiating the prices with their former teams were Shahid Afridi (Jamaica Tallawahs), Shoaib Malik (Guyana Amazon Warriors), Evin Lewis (St Kitts and Nevis Patriots) and Chris Lynn (Trinbago Knight Riders). Interestingly, legspinner Sandeep Lamichhane, who became the first Nepal player to be picked in the IPL last month, also became the first from his country to make it to the CPL. The St Kitts and Nevis Patriots signed him for USD 5,000. The teenage legspinner hadn’t set a base price before entering the auction.

The sixth edition of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) will be held from August 8 to September 16.

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