Gemcon Khulna got lucky to confirm the services of two players of Grade A, when they recruited ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah Riyad through a lottery system in the players’ draft of the upcoming Bangabandhu T20 Cup at a local hotel in the city on Thursday.
Beximco Dhaka and Minister Group Rajshahi paved Khulna a way to rope in the two high quality all-rounders by not calling them up at the first chance.
Beximco Dhaka rather acquired the services of Bangladesh wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim after getting the first chance to call.
Khulna got the second call and duly grabbed Shakib, who will return to competitive cricket with the tournament after serving a ban imposed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) due to his failure to report corrupt approaches from the bookies.
Fortune Barishal then secured the services of Bangladesh ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal in the following bids.
Gazi Group got the opportunity to call in fourth chance and roped in fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman, another Grade A player.
Minister Group Rajshahi however sprung a surprise by not calling Bangladesh T20 skipper Mahmudullah Riyad, the other Grade A player who was available till then. They instead confirmed the services of Mohammad Saifuddin from Grade B.
Mahmudullah Riyad was then picked up by Khulna in the second round.
In the second round of the draft, Liton Das went to Chattogram, Afif Hossain to Barishal and Rubel Hossain to Dhaka.
A total of 157 players were put in four categories, A, B, C and D, according to their price range and each team can pick the maximum of one player from category A, four players from B, five from C and six from D to complete their team.
Shakib Al Hasan is in Grade A along with Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah, Tamim Iqbal and Mustafizur Rahman with the price tag of BDT 15 lakhs respectively.
In Grade B, 21 cricketers are slotted with a price tag of BDT 10 lakhs. 23 cricketers were put in Category C with price tag of BDT 6 lakhs while 108 cricketers were in Grade D with BDT 4 lakhs.
The BCB said the maximum squad size of a team should be 16 players. There was a random draw for each set of the Draft to decide the order for the five participating teams to call their players of choice.
