Malinga's participation in BPL still unclear

Confusion reigns over whether Lasith Malinga will play in the Bangladesh Premier League 2013.

On Thursday evening, after the auction, the Dhaka Gladiators franchise that had bid for Malinga said they were not aware of his unavailability. But the Sri Lanka fast bowler's agent told ESPNcricinfo earlier in the day that Malinga hadn't "entered the auction, a standpoint that was later repeated.*

The BPL governing council, on Wednesday night, sent out a text message with the names of several players who had withdrawn from and been included in the auction. Malinga was listed as one of those included, before his agent claimed he wouldn't be entering.

After the auction, Malinga's agent released this statement: "Lasith Malinga did not express an interest in playing in the BPL at any stage whatsoever so we are totally perplexed at how he ended up in the auction.

"There has been no telephone discussions or emails about his involvement and certainly no signing of a pre-auction agreement. The first we became aware of him being entered into the auction was when reading a Cricinfo story on Thursday morning and we confirmed he was not available to the recruitment agents via e-mail before the auction.

"Lasith wants to rest in February and early March to build up fitness ahead of a big season of limited overs cricket in 2013."

Dhaka bid $115,000 for him after he was placed in the golden category of the foreign players. "We are not aware of any news of [Lasith] Malinga being unavailable," Dhaka's spokesman, Minhaz Uddin Khan, said.