Despite glaring omissions at the player draft and last-minute franchise ownership changes, the Lanka Premier League (LPL), Sri Lanka’s franchise T20 league, returns this Sunday – the second edition in the five-year partnership between Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and the LPL rights holders and tournament organisers ‘Innovation Production Group (IPG).   

Last year’s title-winning Jaffna franchise will take on the Galle Gladiators – a rematch of the 2021 final – in the first of 20 group stage matches, leading up to the title-decider on December 23. The first round matches will be played at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, before the teams move to Hambantota for the knockout phase, all in front of a limited number of spectators.   

If  you had an affinity and allegiance to one of the franchises last season, there’s a good chance that the team you supported no longer exists

Not unlike the first edition, this year’s tournament was also twice postponed, and now comes at the end of a busy calendar year for Sri Lanka’s cricketers who have been engaged in international commitments since July, with bilateral T20 series against India, South Africa, Oman before the T20 World Cup, and the ongoing Test series against West Indies after.   

While the number of teams in this year’s LPL remains the same as the inaugural edition, despite hopes of expanding, including one representing the East, much has changed within the existing franchises.   

What has changed for this season?
If you had an affinity and allegiance to one of the franchises last season, there’s a good chance that the team you supported no longer exists. Four of the five franchises– including the widely popular Jaffna Stallions –embraced new identities after changing ownership. This was, organisers say, mostly due to the inability of the previous franchisees to pay the annual franchise fee, what could be a worrying sign for a league that is striving for stability and continuity.   

Several senior national players, including Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Kusal Janith Perera and Dhananjaya de Silva, were among the list of players who are a part of the national cricket set-up and went unselected at the player draft

The Kandy franchise will no longer be known as Tuskers, renamed as the Kandy Warriors, while the Dambulla franchise have rebranded as the Dambulla Giants. Softlogic Holdings chairman Ashok Pathirage became the first locally based LPL franchise owner when he acquired the Colombo based franchise – which had already changed ownership once since the inaugural season – just a month ago, renaming them the Colombo Stars.   

The ownership of the Jaffna franchise, which won the first edition of the LPL, also changed hands, although the events that led to that were a matter of contention. Under the tenure of Lycamobile’s British-Sri Lankan Chairman Subaskaran Allirajah, the team will be known as the Jaffna Kings.   

Last year’s beaten finalists, the Galle Gladiators, are the only franchise that has not seen a change, owned by Pakistani Nadeem Omar, who also has a stake in the Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League.  
There will also be a slight change to the tournament format when it reaches the knockout phase. The Colombo franchise were hard done last year when, after topping the league stage points table with six wins out of eight matches, their campaign fell apart in the semi-finals, as injuries to Angelo Mathews, Andre Russell and Isuru Udana depleted their bowling attack in a chaotic run chase. That they were eliminated by a team that had barely made the final four, by virtue of a better nett run rate to the last place team, and with a third of the group stage wins, would have felt particularly unjust. The knockout phase will now replicate the format of other franchise leagues like the Indian Premier League where the top two teams in the group stage will play a Qualifier, with the winners directly qualifying for the final. The losing team will have a second chance in a virtual semi-final against the winners of an Eliminator between the third and fourth place teams – an added incentive for teams to finish in the top two.  

Which players will feature in this year’s LPL?
Organisers had stuck to the same squad composition as last year, of six overseas players and 14 local players, all picked under various price brackets. And with each team allowed to retain a maximum of four players from last year’s squad, a minimum of two being local, the squads have changed drastically –somewhat controversially too.  
Several senior national players, including Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Kusal Janith Perera and Dhananjaya de Silva, were among the list of players who are a part of the national cricket set-up and went unselected at the player draft. Former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena was among those who criticised the glaring omissions, compelling SLC to mandate that teams include these players in their squads, though defending the autonomy of franchises in compiling their squads.   

Those four senior players were picked by the Colombo franchise – allowed to redraft players after the change in ownership – under the leadership of Mathews, although the all-rounder is a doubt for the tournament after sustaining a hamstring injury during the second Test against the West Indies.   

Bhanuka Rajapaksa returns to captain the Galle Gladiators, a team that he took from the cusp of first round elimination to the final last year, while Sri Lanka’s limited overs captain Dasun Shanaka once again leads the Dambulla franchise.  

Thisara Perera, who retired from international cricket earlier this year, will skipper the defending champion Jaffna team, while Angelo Perera will take the reins of the Kandy franchise.   

While only a handful of foreign players are returning for this year’s tournament, overseas stars like Chris Gayle, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir and Tabraiz Shamsi have been signed on to take part.