Sri Lanka cricket announces schedule for the Lanka Premier League 2022

The Sri Lanka Cricket Board on Tuesday announced the much-awaited schedule for the Lanka Premier League 2022. The third season of the league will kick off on 1^st August 2022. The first match of the season will see a replay of the last season’s final with the defending champions Jaffna Kings taking on the Gall Gladiators.

The tournament will treat the crowd with 24 mouth-watering clashes with 20 league matches and four final-round games which also include the final of the tournament.

RPICS, Colombo will host the first 14 games of the tournament while the action will shift to MRICS, Hambantota from 13^th August. The mega final of the tournament will be played on 21^st August.

The mega event will have double-headers every day from 1^st August to 17^th August with the Day matches scheduled to start at 3:00 pm while the night matches scheduled to start at 7:30 pm. A total of five teams will be batting out for the coveted title of the tournament. The five teams contesting in the tournament are Jaffna Kings, Galle Gladiators, Colombo Stars, Kandy Falcons and Dambulla Giants.

The player draft for the upcoming season of the tournament was successfully held on 5^th July, 2022 as the five teams were involved in heated bids for the star cricketers from across the world.

As per the rules, the franchises could also retain up to six players, four local and two foreign from the previous year’s squad. They could also directly sign two local and two foreign players ahead of the player draft which included 180 international players and 173 Sri Lankans.

The most expensive international players from the draft were Carlos Braithwaite, Dwaine Pretorius and Imad Wasim. All these players were in the ‘international ruby’ category with a base price of 60,000 USD. There were separate Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, Platinum, Gold and Silver categories for both international and Sri Lankan Players.

Jaffna Kings have emerged as the champions in both the editions of the tournament so far and will be eyeing a hattrick of titles this year. The tournament will be held amid political and economic turmoil in the country. The grand event is expected to aid the crippling economy of the country.

Here’s the complete schedule of the tournament: