India all-rounder Vijay Shankar headlines the Tamil Nadu T20 Premier League Season-5 mega-draft to be held here on Thursday.

The 29-year-old turned out for defending champion Chepauk Super Gillies (CSG) last year.

The fifth season will be held from June 10 to July 12.

The draft features 633 players spread across four categories (A, B1, B2 and C) on the basis of their experience at the international, national and TNPL level.

Only two players are in Category A — Vijay Shankar and former Lyca Kovai Kings captain Abhinav Mukund. B1 category comprises 47 players while B2 has 11 who have played at least 20 TNPL games.

The rest are all in C.

The best performers of TNPL-4 wicketkeeper-batsman N. Jagadeesan (448 runs) and fast bowler G. Periyasamy (21 wickets) will be the other hot picks.

Jagadeesan played for Dindigul Dragons and Periyasamy represented CSG last season.

As reported, Tuti Patriots will be known as Salem Spartans and will be the first team to get to pick a player. iDream Karaikudi Kaalai has been renamed as iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans which is last in the order of the draft.

Teams have been allowed to retain three players each and can have a maximum of 22 while the minimum count is 16.

Categories: Category A (Players with international experience; Rs 6 lakh); Category B1-B2 (First class cricketers and those who have played 20 TNPL games; Rs 2-3 lakh); Category C (Others; Rs 50,000-1 lakh).

Retained players:

Chepauk Super Gillies: Kaushik Gandhi, R. Alexandar, U. Sasidev; Head coach: Hemang Badani.

Dindigul Dragons: R. Ashwin, M. Silambarasan, R. Vivek; Head coach: S Badrinath.

Siechem Madurai Panthers: K.B. Arun Kaarthick, Varun Chakravarthy, Kiran Akash; Head coach: TBC.

VB Kanchi Veerans: B. Aparajith, Sanjay Yadav, N.S. Harish; Head coach: M. Shanmugham.

Lyca Kovai Kings: M. Sharukh Khan, T. Natarajan, S. Ajith Ram; Head coach: Sriram Somayaaula.

Salem Spartans: Washington Sundar, Akshay Srinivasan, M. Ganesh Moorthi; Head coach: S Suresh.

Ruby Trichy Warriors: M. Vijay, R. Sai Kishore, Sonu Yadav; Head coach: Ajay Kudua

iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans: Dinesh Karthik, R. Rajkumar, Maan K Bafna; Head coach: R. Prasanna.