The former Indian cricketer Suresh Raina has signed up for the Lanka Premier League 2023 (LPL) player auction. Raina has set his base price at USD 50,000 and will participate in a player auction which will take place on June 14 and the tournament will be played from July 30 to August 20.
Raina, 36, announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in September 2022. He featured in the Abu Dhabhi T10 2023 tournament in December 2022 where he scored just 36 runs for the eventual champions Deccan Gladiators. Raina also played in Legends League Cricket in March this year and was a notable presence in the commentary box during the Indian Premier League 2023 season.
The fourth edition of the tournament will have an IPL-style auction for the first time. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has already confirmed that over 500 players, including 140 overseas cricketers, have registered for the player auction. Five teams will participate in LPL 2023 with each team will have USD 500,000 to spend during the player auction. Pakistani skipper Babar Azam and South African big-hitter David Miller are among the star overseas cricketers who are confirmed to feature in LPL 2023.
Raina boosts a mammoth experience of playing franchise cricket and is likely to fetch a good offer in the LPL 2023 player auction. The left-handed middle-order batter remains the leading run-scorer for Chennai Super Kings with 5528 runs in 205 IPL matches with one hundred and 39 fifties. Only four more cricketers have scored more runs than former CSK big-hitter in IPL tournaments.
Apart from Raina, the former ace all-rounder Irfan Pathan is the only Indian cricketer to feature in Lanka Premier League. Irfan featured for Kandy Tuskers during the LPL 2020.
Lanka Premier League 2023 pre-selected players list:
Colombo Strikers: Babar Azam, Matheesha Pathirana, Naseem Shah, Chamika Karunaratne
Dambulla Aura: Matthew Wade, Kusal Mendis, Lungi Ngidi, Avishka Fernando
Jaffna Kings: David Miller, Thisara Perera, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Maheesh Theekshana
Kandy Falcons: Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Wanindu Hasaranga, Fakhar Zaman, Angelo Mathews
Galle Gladiators: Shakib Al Hasan, Dasun Shanaka, Tabraiz Shamsi, Bhanuka Rajapaksa
