Wednesday, 30th December – Kingston, Jamaica: The Hero Caribbean Premier League has announced a number of changes to its player draft format for 2016 which will once again see some of the world’s greatest T20 players join the “Biggest Party in Sport”.
The new rules have allowed the six franchise teams to sign one “marquee” player as a free agent before the draft process begins. Over the last two months the teams have been in negotiations with the best players in world cricket and will be announcing their marquee stars in the first few weeks of the New Year.
The number of players that the franchises can retain before the player draft has been reduced from four to three whilst the squad size increases from 16 to 17 for the new season.
Further changes to the rules include the number of players who must live in the franchise territory being reduced from four to two, whilst the limit on overseas players has increased from four to five. 2015 also saw the introduction of ICC Americas players, with two being selected for the Tridents and Patriots squads. In 2016, at least six ICC Americas players will be guaranteed a contract.
Overall the salary cap for each team has increased to US$780k from US$600k.
Commenting on the changes to the format, Tom Moody, International Director of Cricket for CPL said; “Our aim each year is to make CPL even bigger and better so that we can attract the best T20 players in the world and make it as entertaining as possible for the fans. Over the past few months we’ve worked alongside the franchise owners to make sure that the 2016 player draft is open and competitive so that the buzz and excitement of CPL will start building from January right through to the tournament launch in the summer.
From early January 2016 we’ll start to reveal the franchise marquee players and the retained players so that by the time the draft comes around in February fans will already have plenty to talk about.”
The 2016 Hero CPL Player Draft will take place in February 2016 with further announcements due in the coming weeks.
| CPL PLAYER DRAFT RULES SUMMARY | 2015 | 2016 |
| [if !supportLists]A. [endif]Free agent signing of “marquee” players | 0 | 1 |
| [if !supportLists]B. [endif]No. of players who can be retained ahead of draft | 4 | 3 |
| [if !supportLists]C. [endif]No. of players who must live in franchise territory | 4 | 2 |
| [if !supportLists]D. [endif]No. of overseas players who can be drafted | 4 | 5 |
| [if !supportLists]E. [endif]No. of ICC Americas players guaranteed contracts per team – (to be chosen from their Nagico Super 50 squad) | 0 | 1 |
| [if !supportLists]F. [endif]Total squad size and composition | 16 | 17 |
| [if !supportLists]G. [endif]Team salary cap | $600k | $780k |