2023 Lanka Premier League

The 2023 Lanka Premier League also known as Skyfair.news LPL T20, for sponsorship reasons, was the fourth edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL), a Twenty20 franchise cricket tournament in Sri Lanka. It began on 30 July and the final was held on 20 August 2023. The tournament was played by five teams in three international venues. The league was organized by the Sri Lanka Cricket. Jaffna Kings were the defending champions. This was the first Lanka Premier League season to feature an auction as the previous editions used to have the draft to choose players.

Due to change of ownership various teams changed names. Kandy Falcons became B-Love Kandy. Galle Gladiators changed to Galle Titans. Colombo Stars were renamed as Colombo Strikers.

On 20 August 2023, B-Love Kandy defeated Dambulla Aura by 5 wickets in the final, to win their maiden LPL title.

Competition format
Each team can include a maximum of six international players in their squad. The five teams will play each other twice in the round-robin stage. Among them, the top four teams will advance to the playoffs.

Squads
The players' auction was held on 14 June 2023. Prior to the auction, some big-name players signed contracts with the five teams. These players include Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Shakib Al Hasan and David Miller.

Player auction
The auction was held on 14 June 2023, where the five franchises were allowed to spend a maximum of US$500,000 each. The auction was held at Shangri-La Colombo and the likes of Wasim Akram and Angelo Mathews were available during the player auction. Popular Indian cricket commentator Charu Sharma was invited as the chief auctioneer for the auction.

Each team was allowed to have a squad of 20-24 players, inclusive of a mandatory six overseas players and 14-19 domestic players. Any money not spent from the pre-signing kitty cannot be carried over to the auction. The teams also had a right-to-match option for their players, and the money for that had to come from within the auction kitty.

Bidding took place between two teams at any given time, with a third team allowed to join the bidding only once one of the first two teams had withdrawn from the process. An "accelerated" auction process occurred after the first 70 names were presented for bidding. This process saw franchises nominate 15-20 players, including unsold players, who will go under the hammer.

Players were categorised into two groups, capped and uncapped. Each capped player will be able to register themselves under base prices ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 in $10,000 increments. Uncapped players will be classed with a base price of $20,000 - those having played a minimum of 50 first-class matches; $10,000 - a minimum of 25 first-class matches, or a minimum of 18 matches in the LPL or any other equivalent T20 franchise league; and $5000 - those who do not meet any of the criteria mentioned above.

Dilshan Madushanka became the auction's most expensive player to be picked when Jaffna Kings bought him for a record price of $92,000. New Zealand's Chad Bowes became the auction's most expensive overseas player to be picked at $58,000 and it raised eyebrows given Bowes is yet to establish and prove himself at international level.

It was reported that some prominent overseas players including the likes of Rassie van der Dussen were not picked by any of the franchise owners due to the said players being signed up by rival franchise T20 leagues such as Global T20 Canada which are also set to clash with LPL during the same time period.

Venues
R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo and Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy were selected as the venues.

Standings

 * The top four teams qualified for the playoffs
 * Advance to Qualifier 1
 * Advance to Eliminator

Most runs

 * Source: ESPNcricinfo

Most wickets

 * Source: ESPNCricinfo