A cricketer defends a ball during a practice session in Gaya on Sunday. Picture by Suman

More than 200 cricketers from different districts of Bihar and Jharkhand turned up at the trial camp organised to select players for the T20 Gaya Premier League (GPL).

The tournament would start from November 14 among eight teams.

GPL organising committee secretary Akhilesh Singh told The Telegraph that promising cricketers from Patna, Samastipur, Bhojpur, Munger, Nalanda, Dehri-on-Sone and Gaya turned up at the selection camp held at Harihar Subrahmanian stadium at Gandhi Maidan on Saturday and Sunday.

A five-member team of selectors headed by Naushad Nizami and supported by Sanjay Kumar Chunnu, Amit Kumar, Manish Chandra and Aftab Alam gauged the cricketers.

Finally, 128 cricketers would be selected for the tournament and each team will get 16 cricketers. However, it would be mandatory for each team to include at least eight cricketers from Gaya in the final XI.

The selection list of the cricketers will be announced at a meeting of the organising committee scheduled on Wednesday. The selected cricketers would be imparted a 15-day training under the supervision of senior cricketers.

Apart from the cricketers selected through trial, there would be international, national and state-level cricketers at the tournament.

Among such names are Saurav Tiwari, who has played one-day international for India, Monu Singh, who has played in the Under-19 World Cup, Ishant Kishan who has played for Under-16 Indian cricket team, Bihar team Under-19 player Shah Fahad, Subrato Ghosh who was selected in the 25-member team of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for the Indian Premier League (IPL), Arun Vidyarthi, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)-Ranchi team captain and some others.

After the final list is prepared, bidding of cricketers would start. Owners of eight teams — Maurya Height, VC Warriors, Karimganj Creams, Gewalbigha Dangers, Manpur Rajwade, Maharani Warriors, Kings XI Rasalpur and MSY Warriors — have shown interest in the tournament and also in bidding of cricketers.

Gaya-based Young Boys’ Cricket Association (YBCA) is organising the tournament in which the winning team will be getting a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and the runners up Rs 50,000.