The player’s auction of 2nd edition of Everest Premier League (EPL-2) was accomplished on Monday.
Annapurna hotel, Kathmandu hosted the auction which began at 11:30 am and lasted for 4 hours. EPL-2 comprises of 6 teams and each team were allowed to buy 10 players each. Hence, a total of 60 players were sold in the auction.
Sandeep Lamichhane (Lalitpur Patriots) , Aarif Sheikh (Bhairahawa Gladiators), Binod Bhandari(Pokhara Rhinos) and Karan KC (Biratnagar Warriors) cashed in as the most expensive players as all of them were sold for 1 lakh 75 thousand rupees each.
The players were parted on grades as A, B & C . Minimum bid for grade ‘A’ players was 1 lakh while the maximum bid was 1 lakh 75 thousand, while the minimum bid for grade ‘B’ players was 75 thousand and maximum bid was 1 lakh 25 thousand. Similarly, grade ‘C’ players minimum bid was 50 thousand and maximum bid was 75 thousand . In case of more than 1 team bidding at maximum price of a same player, a lucky draw was held and finally the player was sold.
Each teams were allotted a purse of 10 lakh to buy 10 players each.
Bhairahwa Gladiators includes Sharad Vesawkar as their Marquee Player and comprises of star players like Pradeep Airee, Krishna Karki, Bhuwan Karki and Rohit Paudel.
Similarly, Marquee player Paras Khadka’s Biratnagar Warriors comprises of star players such as Basanta Regmi and Avinash Karn.
Marquee Player Dipendra Airee’s team Chitwan Tigers include players like Prithu Baskota, Shahab Alam, Lalit Singh Bhandari and Yogindra Singh Karki as their star players.
Kathmandu King had Sompal Kami as their Marquee players and star players like Sagar Pun, Jitendra Mukhiya, Naresh Budayair, Sushil Kandel and Siddhant Lohani.
Marquee Player Gyanendra Malla’s Lalitpur Patriots comprises of star players such as Mehboob Alam, Kushal Bhurtel, Pawan Sharraf and Lalit Rajbanshi.
Lastly, Pokhara Rhinos included Shakti Gauchan as their Marquee player which has star players like Saurabh Khanal, Sunil Dhamala, Kishore Mahato and Sushan Bhari.
The auction turned out to be a shocker for some current and formers star payers like Anil Mandal, Mahesh Chhetri, Manjeet Shrestha, Paresh Lohani and Sanjam Regmi who went unsold in the auction.
Each team has a compulsion to buy 3 overseas players which will be bought by the team themselves later and one player for each team will be selected from Talent hunt.
Team List ( in photos) :-
