The Under-19 team skipper and new cricketing talent Dipendra Singh Airee was among the six marquee players as EPL Pvt Ltd on Friday unveiled the teams and owners of the Everest Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament scheduled for December.

The six-team EPL is the highest cash prized tournament in country’s cricket history offering a cash purse of Rs 2.1 million to the champions. The city-based franchise competition will see the auction of players and is expected to have foreign players. Airee, who has already made debut for the national team, is the only junior player to have made into the list of marquee players that includes veteran Shakti Gauchan, national team skipper Paras Khadka, vice captain Gyanendra Malla, Sharad Vesawkar and Sompal Kami.

According to the EPL Pvt Ltd Managing Director Aamir Akhtar the marquee players have the base price of Rs 200,000 and the final agreement will be done between the cricketers and owners. Airee is the marquee player of Chitwan Tigers which is owned by Kishore Bhattarai, while Khadka will be playing for Biratnagar Warriors owned by Vishal Agrawal. Vesawkar will be representing Bhairahawa Gladiators with Aditya Shanghai as its owner. Kishore Maharjan owns the Lalitpur Patriots and have Malla as its marquee player.

Gauchan is the marquee player of Pokhara Rhinos and Kami belongs to Kathmandu Kings XI. Shahil Agrawal and Rohit Gupta are the respective owners of Rhinos and Kings XI. It is not necessary that marquee players will be the captains of their respective teams. The partnership period between the owners and EPL is 10 years, and with players tied for three years.

National team skipper Khadka said EPL goes in line with the need to cash in on the on-field achievement of the cricketers. “Twenty20 cricket is probably going to take over all formats in certain period of time. We have already played the Twenty20 World Cup and our performance requires this kind of tournament to keep the momentum going. It also provides a platform for the players beside the national team to play in an environment that EPL creates,” said Khadka.

Anuj Agrawal, the Director of Vishal Group of Companies, said any team is not the sole property of the owners. “We have done a lot of homework for quite a few years to bring this kind of tournament. We have wanted to create an environment that makes you feel that it’s the team of the city that is performing in the field. Biratnagar Warriors doesn’t belong to the owners but it belongs to the entire city,” said Agrawal.

The organisers have made mandatory for each team to have at least three foreigners in their squad and Akhtar, who recently went to Australia for the hunt of players, was confident to board international recruits for every team. “A lot of players from Associate countries have been showing keen interest in playing in the EPL, Kenya skipper Rakep Patel is an example. We are also in talks with players from Test nations and are confident to land them here as well,” said Akhtar.

Of the 15 players in the squad 10 players will come through auction of the cricketers who will be divided into ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ categories. The auction is expected to be held after the third week of October. The new edition is the revamped model of the previous EPL that was played by the franchises owned by corporate houses. Panchakanya Tez, led by Vesawkar, had won the inaugural edition last year.