Titans looking at local youth

With the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) draft set to take place in Dhaka on Sunday, Khulna Titans head coach and former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene is currently in the capital to strategise for the seventh edition of the T20 franchise League. 

The Mahmudullah Riyad-led Khulna made it to the playoffs in the 2017 edition, but could not make the final after losing the Eliminator to eventual champions Rangpur Riders. 

In an event at the franchise's headquarters in Dhaka on Thursday, Jayawardene spoke about how he was looking to approach the draft, which will be a little different this year as the 2019 edition will allow four foreign players in the playing eleven instead of five. In that light, Jayawardene suggested that the focus would shift slightly to the locals. 

"We have retained four players [MNahmudullah, Ariful Haque, Carlos Brathwaite and Nazmul Hossain Shanto] and directly signed two overseas players [Dawid Malan and Lewis Gregory from England] already," Jayawardene said. "So with that we then have to go into the draft and take other players or options that we have. At the draft we cannot plan much, but we can plan how we want to go about it. But it all depends on what number of calling you have to take players.

"Rules have changed this year with four overseas in the XI., so when we retained we realised how important local players are, there is going to be seven in the XI. So we retained three locals and hopefully we can sign some more good local players from the draft."

Jayawardene seemed happy with last edition's performance, despite Khulna not winning the title, singling out Nazmul and Ariful for special praise.

"I thought we played really good cricket by finishing top of the table but just couldn't get through the knockout stages. But that was one game and it's very tough when someone like [Chris] Gayle plays a knock like that. But I thought with the young team we had, the way we have invested, we were very good. So to try and build on that this year, we are looking at those young options.

"Guys like [Nazmul Hossain] Shanto and Ariful [Haque] who are now being consistent in the Bangladesh setup, I just heard [Ariful] has just been picked for the Test squad, which is great news for us. Mahmudullah is going to captain the Test team so the players that we kept as our core players are potential players -- future wise."