Sri Lanka Cricket has named 56 foreign players who will play in the inaugural Sri Lanka Premier League. There are no India or England players - apart from Azhar Mahmood - among the 56, who were picked by the seven franchises via a draft system in Colombo on Thursday.
Shahid Afridi* was originally supposed to be the icon player for Nagenahira but all the franchises wanted to make sure their icon players were available throughout the tournament. Due to the recently announced Australia-Pakistan series that starts on August 28th, Afridi would potentially miss the semi-finals and finals of the SLPL if his team made it that far, leaving Nagenahira without their icon player at the business end of the tournament. With the agreement of the other franchises, Afridi was released by Naganahira in to the draft, where he was subsequently signed by Ruhuna. Lasith Malinga remains Ruhuna's icon, while Nagenahira's icon player will be named on Friday.
