Sri Lanka Premier League postponed to next year

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The inaugural edition of the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL), after facing a series of problems including the withdrawal of Indian players from the tournament, has been postponed to August 2012.

Sri Lanka will have the domestic Twenty20 league in its place featuring five teams, but that will not involve any foreign players.

It is likely that the decision to postpone the league, which was scheduled to start on July 19, was taken today at a meeting between the Cricket Sri Lanka's new committee and the league's organisers, Somerset Entertainment Ventures.

A four-week window in August next year has been identified as the best time to host the event, reported cricinfo.

The BCCI had refused No Objection Certificates to 12 Indian players - Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Manoj Tiwary, Saurabh Tiwary, Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar, Manish Pandey and Paul Valthaty - after it was rumoured that the tournament was organised by a private party, which is close to suspended IPL chief Lalit Modi, and based in Singapore.

Another major blow the league suffered was that the SLC committee that created the tournament was dissolved last week by Sri Lanka's sports ministry.