The draft of this season’s T10 League is out and the likes of Rashid Khan, Brendon McCullum, Chris Lynn and Andre Russell are among the superstar names that will take part in the competition.

Last season, there were only six franchises and that number has shot up to eight this season as they rendezvoused in Dubai for the mini-draft to pick their icon players while also choosing four players to retain in their squad.

On September 2, the teams will meet once again for the main draft to pick the rest of the players for the tournament that takes place in December.

The Maratha Arabians have Rashid Khan as the icon player while McCullum holds this tag for the Rajputs. Meanwhile, Russell and Lynn will play for Northern Warriors and Rajputs while Shahid Afridi has been retained by Pakhtoons as their icon.

Punjabi Legends and Kerala Kings have also retained the services of Shoaib Malik and Eoin Morgan but Darren Sammy has changed teams as he is now going to play for Northern Warriors – a new franchise – instead of Bengal Tigers.

Shane Watson, in the meantime, has been picked up as the icon player for new franchise Karachians. However, not everyone shared the same luck as Pakistan duo Sarfraz Ahmed and Ahmed Shehzad have been released by the franchises.

The second edition of the tournament will have 28 games in 10 days from 13 matches in four days previously. The existing teams were given the opportunity to retain two players from category A and one each from B and C as the categories are based on players’ experience, form and tournament fee.

The success of the previous edition meant that the organisers have increased the franchise fee from $400,000 to $1,200,000 for the two new teams as the eight teams are entitled to 10% of the central revenue pool.

T10 teams after the mini draft:

Maratha Arabians: Rashid Khan (icon), James Faulkner, Alex Hales, Dwayne Bravo, Kamran Akmal

Pakhtoons: Shahid Afridi (icon), Colin Ingram, David Willey, Mohammad Irfan, Liam Dawson

Bengal Tigers: Sunil Narine (icon), Jason Roy, Sam Billings, Asif Ali, Mujeeb Ur Rahman

Punjabi Legends: Shoaib Malik (icon), Evin Lewis, Chris Jordan, Luke Ronchi, Liam Plunkett

Kerala Kings: Eoin Morgan (icon), Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir, Paul Stirling, Dasun Shanaka