The inaugural Big Bash League (BBL) Draft for international players will take place on Sunday night and teams will have a wealth of talent from 20 nations to choose from.

The BBL announced the creation of the draft in June primarily as a way to attract bigger names. Categorising the players as platinum, gold, silver or bronze allows the best players to be offered more competitive salaries.

The basics of the draft are that over four rounds, teams are able to pick a maximum of three players following a lottery-decided order. The Melbourne Renegades won the lottery in July and will therefore have the first pick.

Their selection will then be followed by the Melbourne Stars, Brisbane Heat, Sydney Sixers, Adelaide Strikers, Perth Scorchers and Sydney Thunder, while the Hobart Hurricanes have the final pick.

In the first round, each team is entitled to one of the twelve platinum players. In the second round, they can select platinum or gold players, in the third, gold or silver, and in the fourth, silver or bronze.

If a player is selected by a different team to the team he was on last season, the prior team has the ability to retain him as one of their three picks.

The Players

Most of the focus will be on the twelve platinum players, who were announced on Monday. These players will be paid $340,000 regardless of how many games they play.

They are Faf du Plessis, Jason Roy, Liam Livingstone, Sam Billings, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, David Willey, Shadab Khan, Dwayne Bravo, Rashid Khan, Chris Jordan, and Trent Boult.

While The Renegades are likely to take a shot at Rashid Khan with the first pick, it would be almost unthinkable for the Strikers to not use their retention rights on him.

Instead, the unretainable Jason Roy, Faf Du Plessis and Liam Livingstone would be sensible selections for a Renegades team that has lacked batting depth in recent seasons.

Down the rest of the order, it will be interesting to see whether high-class bowlers such as Boult, Jordan and Willey are prioritised over the batsmen, a trend seen in other T20 competitions of late.

The use of retention picks will also be a point of interest as certain teams have some big decisions to make. The Sydney Thunder in particular has the difficult question of whether to retain Sam Billings, Alex Hales or Mohammed Hasnain.

Their cross-town rivals of the Sydney Sixers have a similar quandary with Chris Jordan, Shadab Khan, Tom Curran and James Vince all eligible for retention.

Another factor in selection will be the availability of the players. Of the platinum players, only Willey and Shadab are not currently contracted for the UAE ILT20 or the South African T20 league. Those who are splitting responsibilities will likely be able to play until late December, around half the season.

The Countries

Of the 332 players to have nominated for the draft, 70 are English. This includes the South Australian native Dan Worrall, who is officially an international player due to his now-permanent connection with the Surrey County Cricket Team.

Aside from the English, there is great variety in nominations, with India being the only major country not to have any players nominate.

While it is unlikely any of the players from the USA, Oman, PNG, UAE or the Netherlands are selected, we could see some smaller countries represented.

The Namibian all-rounder, David Wiese, has become highly sought-after in leagues all over the world and is sure to attract some attention here also.

Likewise, the Irish Paul Stirling is a known power-hitter currently playing for the Southern Brave in The Hundred.

Perhaps if any of the eight nominated Zimbabweans perform well against Australia in the ODI just hours before the draft, they could also earn themselves a place.

BBL Draft Nominees

Here is the full list teams can choose from, with platinum players in bold: