Six national captains, including four from Sri Lanka are Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardane, Kumar Sangakkara and T. M. Dilshan, will lead seven Provincial teams in the upcoming Sri Lanka T20-Premier League (SL-T20-PL) Tournament.
The seventh captain will definitely be former Sri Lanka vice-captain, Chaminda Vaas. The Sri Lanka T20 Premier League will mark almost 35 international cricketing stars and will be the first of its kind in Sri Lanka.
The organizers of this event, Somerert Entertainment Ventures (SEV) have found a window for the tournament which is sandwiched between Sri Lanka's tour of England and Australia's tour of Sri Lanka.
The event will start on July 15th and will go on for 18 days. Twenty four hotly contested matches, including the two semi-finals and the final, will be played at the R. Premadasa Stadium. There will be two matches on certain days.
Dashing opener T. M. Dilshan will lead Basnahira while Kumar Sangakkara (Kandurata), Mahela Jayawardane (Wayamba), Sanath Jayasuriya (Ruhuna) and Chaminda Vaas (Uva) will be the other captains.
Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi (Nagenahira) and New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori (Uthura) have been chosen to lead two provinces that were isolated from the game for ages due to the civil war.
Five overseas players could be registered to a provincial team but only four will be allowed to play in a match. Sri Lankan national selectors and cricket authorities have decided to blood as many youngsters and almost 70 Sri Lankan cricketers will be registered in the seven team tournament.
Almost all Pakistani national cricketers will be invited to play in the SLPL. Factually, Sri Lanka was Pakistan's adopted home in the 2011 Cricket World Cup accomplished last month as they played all their first round matches in Sri Lanka.
Besides that, Chris Gayle and the Bravo cousins (Dwayne and Darren) from West Indies, Pathan brothers (Irfan and Yousuf) from India, Herschelle Gibbs, David Warner and Shaun Tait will be seen in action on Sri Lankan soil.
The accessibility of retired great Muttiah Muralitharan is not yet confirmed but some unconfirmed sources exposed that he is keen to play in the series.
Milind Rege, the tournament manager of the 2011 cricket World Cup will be in charge of all cricketing issues of the tournament. Rege is a former Ranji Trophy captain for Mumbai and recently retired from TATA corporation as a managing committee member.