MUMBAI: The cash-strapped Sri Lanka Cricket board (SLC) has set a floor price of $3 million for the T20 league franchises, a paltry amount compared to the IPL.

When IPL launched in 2008, it had fixed a minimum price of $50 million, which later zoomed to $225 million when two teams were added in 2010.

The SLC said it will lease out seven teams for a period of seven years and has set in motion the process of identifying franchises for the Sri Lanka Premier League. Bids are invited for the T20 league which has been formed on the lines of cash rich Indian Premier League.

The last day to submit bids is 25 June, while the names of successful bidders will be announced the same day. Interested entities can bid for a maximum of three franchises.

The first edition of SLPL Twenty20 will feature seven provincial teams who will play a total of 24 matches at two venues Colombo and Pallekele. The SLPL will be played from 10-31 August before the ICC Twenty20 World Cup which will be held in Sri Lanka.

Each team will be allowed to have only 18 players in their squad with a compulsory ruling of no more than six overseas players in each squad.

However, teams can field only four overseas players in the playing eleven, while the remaining seven players will be Sri Lankan?s with one player mandatorily being an under-21 cricketer.

The players will be selected through draft process with players being divided into two groups. The first group will consist of players from Sri Lanka while the second group will include foreign players.

It was the Indian cricket board?s reluctance to allow Indian players in the SLPL that led to the postponement of the league last year.

However, the SLC has made it clear that it will go ahead with the league even without Indian players. "We will go ahead with the tournament with or without Indian players," SLC Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga said.

The Sri Lankan board has got the commitment of most full member countries, who have committed to release their players for the tournament, he added.

Somerset Entertainment Ventures is commercial rights holder for the tournament.

All the matches of SLPL will be televised live by Carlton Sports in Sri Lanka. CSN is owned by family members of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

MUMBAI: The BCCI will not allow Indian cricket players to participate in the Sri Lanka Premier League, a move seen as protecting the Indian Premier League from facing any competition whatsoever.

The BCCI?s main contention is that if it permits Indian players to play in the Sri Lanka league, then it may set a precedent for other leagues across the world.

Though a severe setback, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has decided to go ahead with the event with or without Indian partcipation.

SLC Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga said, "We will go ahead with the tournament with or without Indian players".

Ranatunga also said that SLC had not been officially told that Indian players would not take part in SLPL.

The league will take place in August before the Twenty20 World Cup. Last year the league did not take off as the BCCI did not allow Indian players to take part.

MUMBAI: With no other bidder in fray, newly launched Carlton Sports Network has acquired the terrestrial broadcast rights of international cricket matches played in Sri Lanka for a period of three years from 2012-15.

Sri Lankan pubcaster Rupavahini was the incumbent broadcast rights holder while India?s Taj Television holds the satellite broadcast rights for Sri Lanka besides global broadcast rights till March 2013.

Sri Lanka Cricket, the governing body of cricket in the country, had in January published ads in local newspapers and their official website inviting bids for the terrestrial rights.

According to an industry source, the amount CSN will pay for the rights is peanuts compared to what it is worth. Rupavahini had paid SLR 143 million to acquire the rights compared to CSN?s SLR 125 million.

Incumbent rights holder Rupavahini did not even put up a bid, despite the fact that it had made a killing from last year?s ICC World Cup when it earned a whopping SLR 556 million.

According to Lankan English Daily Mirror, Rupavahini chairman Mohan Samaranayake admitted that the pubcaster did not bid for the rights without offering any proper explanation.

To top it all, SLC secretary Nishantha Ranatunga is also the chief executive of CSN, a brazen case of conflict of interest which many in India would relate to courtesy BCCI president N Srinivasan who also owns an IPL team.

The Lankan government had last year passed a law which requires all local television and radio broadcast rights for cricket matches to be awarded to either state media or a dedicated sports channels. The law, many feel, was beneficial to CSN which was the only dedicated sports broadcaster in the country.

Incidentally, CSN also holds the broadcast rights for the Sri Lanka Premier League.