TPL Player Auction Ceremony Briefing

by Naim Khan, Chairman of TML Cricket committee.

In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. All praise and thanks be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon Prophet Muhammad, his family and his Companions.

Master of Ceremonies; Bro Farouk Khan, Mr. Asim Basarath, President of TTCB, Bro. Farz Khan President of TML, Fazeer Mohammed, our feature speaker tonight and T&T internationally acclaimed commentator, Mr. Steve Noray rep from the TTWCA, our franchise owners, sponsors, players, tml representatives, other invite guest, bros and sisters, Assalamu Alaikum.

It gives me great pleasure to provide you with a briefing on our 2nd edition of the 2018 TML Cricket Premier League.

Our inaugural PL 2017 was sponsored by Takaaful T&T and this our second edition is now sponsored by Oasis Water & Exe Gen. Upho.

The premier league will now be called the 2018 TML/Oasis Water & Exe Gen Upho Premier League.

Premier League Cricket seems to be the more attractive brand where players are highly paid and supporters are filling grounds all around the world.

From 2019 all international cricket will come to halt during the IPL, this will allow the best players a change to play for and indian owned franchise team.

TTCB President Mr. Bassarat, franchise cricket may not be what our local and regional cricket needs at this time, but it is the future, and we must get on board.

Much of the success of our Trinidad T-20 players are as a result of the exposure to local windball cricket.

20 over windball cricket was the foundation of us cricketers over 40 years ago.

Today this has been further reduced to 15, 12, 10 and at TML now 8 overs??

Its just a reflections of the times of instant gratification we live in.

Our small TML cricket committee of 6 person decided to introduce this new phemoninon of cricket last year.

We asked the players from the 20 plus Jamaat teams if they would be interested in playing for a franchise team, while still being able to rep their respective jamaat?

The answer was a resounding yes.

Without having any prior knowledge or training on how franchise cricket works, our committee met for many days and hours meeting with many stake holders, the TML, the business owners, the players etc., ironing out the details, and today the rest is history.

We successfully promoted the first franchise type premier league in windball cricket, regionally and perhaps the world.

I can tell you that almost every player who participated in 2017 edition, has signed on to play in 2018. They are all very excite and raring to play again this year.

The TPL displayed the best 72 of the over 400 registered players in our leagues. The cricket was competitive as it was excited and on Feb 16th, I invite you to be present when defending champs Nur Islam Exe Eagles will defend their crown against Office R Us Scorpions

In these difficult economic period, 5 of our franchise owners have again signed on and willing to invest,

  1. Rockhard Cement – Rockford United, owned by Ashraf Ali
  2. Eniath’s Printing Co. Ltd. – TML Enforcers, owned by Shahnaz Mohammed
  3. Office Are Us- Scorpions, owned by owned Hafeez Khan
  4. Atlantic Trading – ATCO Curepe Blazers owned Wahid Mohammed
  5. Executive General Upholsterers – Executive Eagles, owned Mansoor Sankar
  6. and our new owner, Kingsmen, owned Shaffraz Bocus

These franchise owners were always present during their teams games, just like you will see Shahrukh Khan of KKR at the IPL.

With their investment, each premier league player will receive monies from the auction bids, match fees, branded uniforms, bats, balls, refreshments, Max Grill House Player of the match award, etc.

On behalf of the hosts TML, our cricket committee, the players and other stake holders, I say a heart felt thanks to our 6 franchise team owners, Oasis Water & Exe Gen Upho for providing first prize of $8000 cash, second prize of $4000 cash trophies and medals.

May Allah continue to bring your businesses success, Insha Allah.

It is again our hope that all the Jamaats and their players who participate in the TML Cricket Championship, Fun and Masters leagues will adopt a franchise team and lend your support to them, just as you do for the IPL or CPL teams.

Bros & sisters, I ask you to turn out in your numbers support your favourite team and players, this can only develop our own cricketers and cricket in general.

Just a brief on our 2018 premier league format.

Players Eligibility for the TPL

Any player who would have participated in any of the 4 TML Cricket leagues in 2016/17. Players were asked to sign a consent form which will allow them to play and represent any franchise team that they were chosen to.

Over 100 players consented and a list was distributed to all the franchise owners. The players 2017 stats are available on our website for owners to see their batting and bowling averages.

Player Category

We have the following category of players;

  1. Franchise Player or Captain
  2. Player/Manager
  3. Retained Players 1 & 2
  4. Auction Players
  5. Ordinary/Draft Player

Each Franchise were allowed to retained their franchise player, player/manager plus two other players from their 2017 team, 4 in all, for a total sum of $1000.00 to be shared.

These selections have already been made which you will see in the player auction ceremony.

The Auction ceremony will be divided into two parts.

Part 1 – Auction Players

30 star players were preselected by the franchises to bid on, each franchise owner now has a total max spend of 1000.00 in which to buy 3 players.

Bids must be in $100 increments.

Also in this auction we have what is called the – Right to Match card. RTM.

This RTM card gives the Franchise the option to retain a player who played for them in 2017, by matching the exact amount they were sold for at the auction.

Example- Team TML Enforcers did not retain player S. Ramjohn he now goes into the auction.

If any other franchise bids for him and wins the bid, TML Enforcers can now use their RTM card and retain him for same price, as long as they have not spent the amount that we was sold for.

Part 2 – Ordinary Draft Player

In this part, the other 49 consented players as well as the remains 12 star players from the auction pool will be selected in an approve manner.

All unsold or unselected players not bought or selected today, may have the chance to be added as a replacement player should a player be unable to complete the tournament through injury or unforeseen events.

Lets wish all franchises Allah’s blessing and guidance in todays Auction and selection ceremony.

In closing I invite everyone to be present here this Friday 19th Jan at 8pm to the opening ceremony of TML Cricket Championship, Fun and Masters League. Former T&T and WI batsman Daren Ganga will be on hand to deliver the feature address.

I thank you,

Assalam Alaikum
Naim Khan
Chairman TML Cricket Committee

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