Nepal held its first ever draft of the players as five franchises on Tuesday picked up cricketers for the upcoming Women’s Champions League slated for September 20-28 at the TU Stadium.

A total of 107 players had registered for the draft where they were divided into four categories—Diamond, Rubies, Sapphire and Wild Card. The Diamond category included players representing the current national team and Rubies indicated players who have played any international for the national team.

The players competing in regional and national cricket tournament fell in sapphire category, while wild card included cricketers picked up through talent hunt. In the draft system, the players are registered according to the category set by the organisers and will have a certain salary slot for which they will be paid.

Each franchise had a total purse of Rs 500,000 with Biratnagar Titans, owned by former national team cricketer Parash Luniya, emptying their tank. Titans got the services of current national team members Sonu Khadka and Aarati Bidari who were registered in the Diamond category which had a salary slot of Rs 75,000.

The franchise drawn first in the lucky draw would get the opportunity to pick their desired players. Jyoti Pandey, Dolly Bhatt, Laxmi Chaudhary, Sabnam Rai and Pratikshya Basyal were picked up by Titans from Rubies category which had salary slot of Rs 50,000. They have Sarita Magar as the marquee player. The Sapphire category salary slot was fixed at Rs 25,000. All the franchises picked 11 players from the draft on Tuesday. Its mandatory for all the franchises to pick two players each from the talent hunt which will be done later.

Kajal Shrestha and Ritu Kanojiya were picked up by Chitwan Rhinos from the Diamond category with Rekha Rawal and Santoshi Chaudhary the only two Rubies category cricketers in the team. Indu Barma is the marquee player of the franchise owned by Mingma Dandu Sherpa. Rhinos saved Rs 75,000 from their total purse.

Pokhara Paltan has national team vice-captain Sita Rana Magar as the marquee player and will be joined by Kabita Kunwar and Bindu Rawal from the Diamond category. Anjali Chand and Anuradha Chaudhary were taken from the Rubies. Paltan, Titans and Rhinos are the three teams which also compete in the Pokhara Premier League—one of the three men’s Twenty20 cricket tournament of the country. Paltan are owned by Binayak Pokharel.

The other two franchise include Kat Queens Kathmandu and Lalitpur Falcons—the franchises who compete in the Everest Premier League as Pokhara Rhinos and Lalitpur Patriots. Queens were previously announced as Capital Royals Kathmandu before they changed their name. Owned by Deepa Agrawal, Queens have national team skipper Rubina Chhetri as their marquee.

Queens bought the services of Roma Thapa and Apsari Begam from the Diamond category with Mamta Thapa, Rashmi Sharma Chaulagain, Saraswati Chaudhary and Sangita Rai picked up from the Rubies category. Karuna Bhandari and Mamta Chaudhary are the two Diamond category players for Falcons who have former national team captain Nary Thapa as marquee. Sarita Diswa Magar and Roshani Bohora are the two Rubies players for Falcons who are owned by Srijana Joshi.