Nepal’s opener and wicketkeeper Mahamad Aasif Sheikh emerged as the biggest signing of the third season of the Nepal Premier League after defending champions Lumbini Lions secured him through a lucky draw when bidding reached the maximum price of Rs2 million during the auction on Monday.

Sheikh was the only player in the auction pool of 155 players whose base price started from Rs1.5 million, and the ceiling was Rs2 million. The reason: he was the marquee player released by Janakpur Bolts. The champion of the first season has selected spinner Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi as their marquee.

Before the auction, the eight franchises had retained and released players.

With the teams allowed to retain up to seven players, including the marquee, five—Chitwan Rhinos, Karnali Yaks, Pokhara Avengers, Sudurpashchim Royals and Lumbini Lions—had retained seven. Kathmandu Gorkhas and Biratnagar Kings retained six players, while Janakpur Bolts only had five.

It took a while for Sheikh’s name to be picked from the box mixed with the nameplates of players from the top two categories. But he did not get a bid from all eight teams, as Chitwan decided not to.

The auction of the third season of the Nepal Premier League concluded on Monday evening with 37 out of 155 players bought by the eight franchises through the auction.

The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) had increased the domestic players’ quotas for each team to 14 for the third season. Previously, it was 12.

Similarly, CAN also gave continuity to the same price ceiling for the three categories—Rs200,000 to Rs500,000 for ‘C’, Rs500,000 to Rs1 million for ‘B’ and Rs1 million to Rs1.5 million for ‘A’. There were five players in the auction in ‘A’ category, 27 in ‘B’ category and 123 in ‘C’ category.

Alongside Sheikh, the other four A-category players—Arjun Gharti, Bibek Kumar Yadav, Trit Raj Das and Rupesh Kumar Singh—also went up to the lucky draw after being bid up to their maximum price of Rs1.5 million by more than one franchise.

Gharti went to Pokhara, Yadav to Chitwan, Singh to Biratnagar and Das to Janakpur.

None of the 22 C-category players went either for a lucky draw or for their maximum price. The maximum price for C-category players was Rs425,000, which was bid for Rit Gautam and Sujan Thapaliya, who were bought by Janakpur and Biratnagar, respectively.

But there were two players from ‘B’ category who went for a lucky draw after multiple teams bid at their maximum price of Rs1 million.

Batsman Dipak Bohara and pacer Kishor Mahato went for a lucky draw in the ‘B’ category and were inducted into the squads of Sudurpashchim and Lumbini, respectively.

Through the auction, the eight teams bought 37 players—five from Category A, 10 from Category B and 22 from Category C. Gorkhas were the only team to not get any player from either the A or B categories.

As the teams still had slots remaining to complete their 14-member domestic squads after the auction ended, they were asked to submit a “wish list”, through which franchises could select players who had gone unsold.

Karnali and Kathmandu sought three players each; Pokhara, Biratnagar and Karnali sought two each; and Janakpur, Chitwan and Lumbini sought one player each from the wish list.

The wish list process completed the domestic player quotas of 13 players for all teams. They will be taking their squad number up to 14, with one player selected through their respective talent hunts.