Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) is an Indian Twenty20 cricket league established by the Tamil Nadu State Cricket Association (TNCA) in August, 2016. The domestic cricket competition is modelled along the lines of the popular Indian Premier League (IPL). Only cricketers registered in Tamil Nadu are eligible for the competition. STAR India will be the broadcaster.
Apart from giving the fans something to look forward to, the bigger purpose of the tournament is to take cricket to the districts and unearth local talent. TNCA have often been criticised for being too Chennai-centric and the TNPL is a step towards correcting that longstanding image, with Karaikudi, Dindigul, Kanchipuram, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruvallur and Thoothukudi having franchises apart, obviously, from Chennai.
TNPL basic facts
Total Teams: 8
Dates: August 24 to September 18
Venues: Chennai, Dindigul, Tirunelveli
Venues: Chennai, Dindigul, Tirunelveli
Briadcaster: Star Sports 1 and Star Sports HD 1
Venues: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai; NPR College Ground, Dindigul; Indian Cement Company Ground, Tirunelveli
Format
Each team will play seven matches. In league stage a team will face other teams once and top four teams will qualify for semi-finals. Winners of semis will take on each other in the finals.
Mascot and Chairman
Former Australian cricketer Mathew Hayden is TNPL’s brand ambassador. Hayden was part of Chennai Super Kings during his playing days. PS Raman, BCCI legal cell’s head, is the chairman of the league.
Teams & Franchises
Team | City | Owner(s) | Captain | Price (INR) |
Chepauk Super Gillies | Chepauk | Metronation Chennai Television | Rajagopal Sathish | 5.13 crore (US$760,000) |
Lyca Kovai Kings | Coimbatore | Lyca Productions | Murali Vijay | 5.01 crore (US$740,000) |
Dindigul Dragons | Dindigul | TAKE Solutions | Ravichandran Ashwin | 3.42 crore (US$510,000) |
Ruby Kanchi Warriors | Kanchipuram | Ruby Builders | Baba Indrajith | 3.69 crore (US$550,000) |
Karaikudi Kaalai | Karaikudi | Chettinad Apparels | Subramanium Badrinath | 3.3 crore (US$490,000) |
Madurai Super Giants | Madurai | Kothari (Madras) Ltd | Arun Karthik | 4.001 crore (US$590,000) |
TUTI Patriots | Thoothukudi | Thoothukudi Sports and Entertainment Private Limited | Dinesh Karthik | 5.21 crore (US$770,000) |
VB Thiruvallur Veerans | Tiruvallur | Former India player and Owner of VB Academy V.B. Chandrasekhar | Baba Aparajith | 3.48 crore (US$520,000) |
Full squads of teams featuring in Tami Nadu Premier League-
Tuti Patriots: Dinesh Karthik(c), Umashankar Sushil, Siddarth Ahuja, Akash Surma, Subramanian Anand, Aswin Crist, V Athisayaraj Davidson, Aushik Srinivas, Lakshmipathy Balaji, M Ganesh Moorthi, Kaushik Gandhi, V Lakshman, Maaruthi Raghav, Abhinav Mukund, SP Nathan, G Nicul Anand, R Sathyanarayan, R Vishaal, Washington Sundar.
Chepauk Super Gillies: Rajagopal Sathish(c), Antony Dhas, Gopinath, Joel Joseph, Yo Mahesh, Dakshinamoorthy Kumaran, Sathiamoorty Saravanan, Thalaivan Sargunam, R Alexander, Aditya Barooah, Jothimani Gowjith Subhash, S Karthik, Ashwath Mukumthan, Baskaran Rahul, Rajeel Abdul Rahman, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Uthirasamy Sasidev, V Shibi Jawahar, SI Vasudevan, PS Nirmal Kumar.
Lyca Kovai Kings: Murali Vijay(c), Adhithya Giridhar, S Ajith Ram, Devendra Anchit, B Anirudh Sita Ram, B Arun, K Gowtham Thamarai Kannan, S Harish Kumar, Murugesan Kamlesh, M Mohammed, Ravi Kumar Rohith, Vijay Shankar, MK Sivakumar, Akshay Srinivasan, L Suryaprakash, JS Mohammad, S Tarun Srinivas, Krishnamoorthy Vignesh.
Madurai Super Giants: Arun Karthik(c), Andrew Subikshan, Maan Bafna, DT Chandrasekar, P Francis Rokins, C Madhu, Muruganantham, Pitchaiayan Sakthi, Varun Narender, Lakshminarayanan Vignesh, Ganapathi Vignesh, Singamuthu Thiyagarajan, M Raja, R Mihir, Edward Kennedy, S Aswin Kumar, Palani Amarnath, Suresh Kumar, Shijit Chandran.
Ruby Kanchi Warriors: Baba Indrajith(c), Jagannathan Kaushik, Rangaraj Suthesh, Adithya Ganesh, B Aditya, Akkil Srinaath, Anthony Mannays, Bharath Shankar, L Ganesh, Rajamani Jesuraj, Jagatheesan Kousik, Nilesh Subramanian, Murthy Prabhu, Alagh Prathiban, Ranjan Paul, Shahrukh Khan, S Siddharth, Trilok Nag, Krishna Varun Kumar.
Dindigul Dragons: Ravichandran Ashwin(c), Subramania Siva, Murugan Ashwin, Ganga Sridhar Raju, T Natarajan, Sunny Kumar Singh, Ashwin Venkataraman, Wilkins Victor, S Abishiek, Adithya Arun, S Dinesh, VRS Guru Kedarnath, N Jagadeesan, D Prashanth Prabhu, MS Sanjay, S Shyam Sundar, M Silambarasan, R Vivek, ME Yazh Arun Mozhi, K Mukunth.
VB Thiruvallur Veerans: Baba Aparajith(c), NS Chaturved, Hari Nishanth, R Kavin, U Mukilesh, Ramalingam Rohit, Samuel, Santosh Shiv, Silambarasan, Vignesh, Abhishek Tanwar, Rahil Shah, Sanjay Yadav, Malolan Rangarajan, Samruddh Bhat, Lakshmi Narayanan, Jaganath Sinivas, Govindaraj, S Arun.
Karaikudi Kaalai: S Badrinath(c), Srikkanth Anirudha, A Jerome, S Lokeshwar, M Shajahan, Santha Moorthy, R Sonu Yadav, S Sujay, S Swaminathan, K Vishal Vaidhya, Sunil Sam, M Vijay Kumar, Suresh Babu, Rajhamany Srinivasan, Shoaib Md Khan, R Rajkumar, S Mohan Prasath, Kiran Akash, Chandrasekar Ganapathy, M Abhinav.
Tamil Nadu Premier League | |
Countries | India |
Administrator | Tamil Nadu Cricket Association |
Headquarter | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
Format | Twenty20 |
First tournament | 2016 |
Last tournament | 2016 |
Next tournament | 2017 |
Tournament format | Round-robin and Knock-out |
Number of teams | 8 |
Tamil Nadu Premier League or TNPL T20, the latest regional cricket league, is here to enthrall fans. The league is in its debut season and features top cricketers from South India. The league was launched by Indian limited-overs captain MS Dhoni. Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) president N Srinivasan is behind this newly formed league and his company India Cements is its principal sponsor. It can be said that the TNPL T20 will cater to Chennai Super Kings fans, which is currently suspended for two years from participating in the Indian premier League (IPL).
TNPL like any other league will help budding cricketers and who knows these players find their way in the upcoming IPL. Joining the novice cricketers will be seasoned campaigners like Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, L Balaji and Dinesh Karthik.
After weeks of waiting and hype, the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) is all set to kick off on Wednesday, 24 August, as the Chepauk Super Gillies and Tuti Patriots clash at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. With the state starved of top level cricket action for more than a year, the inaugural edition of the TNPL should serve as breath of fresh air for local fans. The TNPL is along the same lines as the Karnataka Premier League (KPL) and Maharashtra Premier League (MPL), launched in 2009 and 2015 respectively, and is expected to tap into the cricketing potential throughout the south Indian state.
The eight franchises will be captained by well-known names of Tamil Nadu cricket, including the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay, etc, and the tournament will be held over one month.
There was a bit of trouble for the league recently, with the participation of star players such as Karthik and Vijay under a cloud, but that has been satisfactorily settled. Earlier this month, captain of the Indian ODI side and the suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) side Chennai Super Kings (CSK), MS Dhoni launched the league at an event in the Tamil Nadu capital along with former Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) president N Srinivasan, whose company India Cements is the principal sponsor of the league.
Lawyer PS Raman, who heads the BCCI legal cell, will serve as the chairman of the league.
The tournament has seen plenty of hype and promotion, with former Australia and CSK batsman Matthew Hayden being appointed as mascot of the league. Hayden has been seen in various parts of the state in recent days, drumming up enthusiasm for the tournament, and even watching blockbuster Tamil movie Kabali as part of his promotion schedule.
Below are all the details that you need to know about the league, given that we are just a few hours away from the tournament's start.
While many saw the lighter side of things, some considered it nearly blasphemous that the iconic stadium they revered was reduced to this, especially when the other cities were enjoying the Indian Premier League and the World T20. It was the stadium that hosted the tied Test, Tendulkar’s heroics, the unforgettable heartbreak against Pakistan, Virender Sehwag’s 319 and numerous other historic events. It was hard to digest the current state.
The current situation was symbolic of the off-field power-shift in Indian cricket. N Srinivasan was no longer the boss of Indian cricket, and Chennai Super Kings were suspended for two years.
It didn’t help that a never-ending standoff between the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) and Chennai Corporation over the issue of its three locked stands hampered their World T20 plans.
It was the first time Chennai was missing out on such a high-profile event, drawing suggestions that the new BCCI regime was being vindictive. Amid all the drama, it was the fans who were the most affected.
“Chepauk is a sacred place for all of us,” H Saravanan, the Chennai super-fan, told Wisden India. “It felt like cricket itself has gone away from us. It’s not like we watch cricket only when there is an India match. We would have been happy with any other match as well, but we didn’t get even that.”
None of that, though, affected the enthusiasm of the average fan, who turned up in decent numbers for the women’s games and extended support to good cricket like they’ve been known to.
There have been multiple setbacks over the last year, but the endless enthusiasm of the fans presented TNCA with an opportunity to kick-start a project that had been in the pipeline for quite a while – the Tamil Nadu Premier League.
Cricket in Tamil Nadu will turn a new chapter on Wednesday when the Tamil Nadu Premier League kicks off on Wednesday. The inaugural match will be played between VB Thiruvallur Veerans and Karaikudi Kaalai at Chepauk. The tournament will provide a platform for local talents who can showcase their skills. The tournament will also signal a return of T20 cricket to the state after the ban of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) from the IPL.
While the aim of the tournament is to unearth local talents, established stars, including Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, Vijay Shankar, Baba Aparajith, Abhinav Mukund and Dinesh Karthik, will also be seen in action. Apart from these stars, the teams have also appointed star players to coach their side. While former Australian all-rounder Michael Bevan will coach Madurai Super Giants, his compatriot and the legendary pacer Brett Lee will mentor the Ruby Kanchi Warriors. Former South African great Lance klucner will coach the Lyca Kovai Kings.
With so many stars to look forward to and a promise of quality cricket, TNPL looks all set to change the landscape of Tamil Nadu cricket.
