The Sunshine Coast Marlins have come away from the inaugural Brisbane Premier League draft thrilled with their selections.

The Sunshine Coast Marlins have come away from the inaugural Brisbane Premier League draft thrilled with their selections of local and interstate players

The Sunshine Coast Marlins cricket team has landed some key names in the inaugural Brisbane Premier League draft.

Both senior and junior men's teams have been finalised with the female under-19s occurring later this month.

The competition that features eight franchises from southeast Queensland is the first of its kind and is set to play a “critical” role in the development of aspiring players.

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Co-founder of the BPL and Coastal Marlins, Nick Fitzpatrick, said he was rapt with his junior and senior selections and it had been amazing to see the hard work come together.

“We’re absolutely stoked with our selections for all teams,” he said.

“Our picks have been backed up with chatter from other teams and people within the competition that we have one of the better squads in the seniors and in the juniors as well.”

Mr Fitzpatrick said there were a few selections and draft picks that the team worked really hard to secure.

“In the seniors we were really happy to get Jay Lenton who has played in the Big Bash for the Sydney Thunder and performed well at that level,” he said.

“We were able to pick him up early in the auction for a bargain as the other teams were a bit gun shy.

“In terms of local talent we were pretty big on getting Josh Matthews who is a young opening batsmen for the Scorchers.”

Australian and Queensland cricket legend Ian Healy is among the APL and BPL’s backers. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Mr Fitzpatrick said it was the same in the junior teams which ranged from under-12 to under-19.

“We got Isaac Kelsey in our under-19s who is a local fast bowler and we were pretty happy to get him early on,” he said.

“Jackson Mills is one who impressed us at a senior level last year so we were really happy he fell to us with the fourth pick.”

The Sunshine Coast players are well represented across the board with each team having anywhere between 2-6 local athletes.

Fitzpatrick said the biggest thing the competition would do is give players the opportunity to showcase their skills through T20 cricket.

“The seniors only play about four T20 games each year and most of the time a BBL player like Chris Lynn, who scored three hundreds, will come back to his local side and play which means the others don’t get a chance to perform,” he said.

“The BPL will serve as a pre-season competition and each team will play a minimum of 6 games.”

Plenty of logistics have been worked through behind the scenes to launch the competition.

“It’s really exciting and I’ve loved working on it all so far,” Fitzpatrick said.

“It’ll be awesome to see that first ball bowled and it will be great seeing all eight teams down at the one venue.”