MUMBAI: Sri Lankan Cricket (SLC), the governing body of cricket in the country, has signed a fresh deal with Singapore-based Somerset Entertainment Ventures for its ambitious franchise based T20 league that had failed to take off last year.

As per the new deal, the tournament will be held between 10-31 August ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka in September, according to ESPNCricinfo.

SEV had entered into a five-year deal with SLC to acquire the commercial rights of SLPL, but the deal became void as the interim committee of SLC that had signed the deal was replaced.

The new deal also addresses concerns raised by a Committee on Public Enterprises report regarding some of the clauses in the contract. The agreement has been cleared by the office of the Sri Lankan attorney general.

The inaugural edition of the SLPL was supposed to be held from 19 July to 4 August but it did not take-off due to Indian cricket board?s reluctance to grant NoC to its players to participate in the league.

The BCCI had at that time contended that the contract with SEV does not safeguard the financial interests of the Indian players. The BCCI also suspected that former IPL chairman Lalit Modi had interests in SLPL, a charge that was vehemently denied by both SEV and SLC.

As for the format of the event, the SLPL will have seven teams who will play each other in a round-robin format followed by semi-finals and finals. The games are expected to be played at Colombo and Kandy.