Lahore, Feb 8 : Pakistan's left-handed opener Salman Butt, middle-order batsman Misbah-ul-Haq and bowler Sohail Khan will join the Indian Premier League (IPL) soon.

Earlier, batsmen Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan, all-rounders Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi and pacers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif had joined the IPL.

The IPL is a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) creation, and has been sanctioned by International Cricket Council (ICC) after the BCCI banned their contracted players from playing the rebel Indian Cricket League.

The IPL has also shown interest in bowler Umar Gul and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal.

The league is expected to start in April and will consist of 59 matches played over 44 days. The prize money for the tourney is an estimated three million dollars.

According to The Nation, the IPL has evaluated Salman and Misbah's value at 150,000 dollars respectively and 125,000 dollars for Sohail.

Lalit Modi,Sunil Gavaskar, M A K Pataudi, Ravi Shastri, Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, Inderjit Singh Bindra and Arun Jaitley are in the governing council of the IPL.

Each IPL team will consist of a pool of 16 players, out of which four will be international and four from the under-19 level from the area from where the teams will play.

Earlier it was planned to be a franchise system, but the BCCI contracted several foreign players to play in the IPL.

The IPL received a further boost in its popularity when India's top industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya, and film stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta won bids to own teams of the league.

ANI