BPL relaxes restrictions amid overseas players’ crisis
The governing council of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has declared the grade and the salary slab of the cricketers for the upcoming edition, which is scheduled to begin in the first week of January next year, reports news agency BSS.
The local and foreign players, who will put their name in the draft, will be divided in seven categories from grade A to grade G.
Remunerations for the local players will range from Tk eight million to lowest Tk 0.5 million.
A grade players will earn Tk eight million, B grade Tk five million, C grade Tk three million, D group Tk two million, E group Tk 1.5 million, F grade Tk one million and G grade 0.5 million, informed BPL member secretary Ismail Haider Mallick.
The pay for grade A overseas players will be $80,000, almost the same as local players who are slotted in the same grade.
However, each of the seven franchises will be allowed to directly sign one local and as many overseas players as they want outside of the draft.
“We will allow one local direct signing. The rest have to be taken from the draft. We didn’t set any limitation in case of direct singing for foreign players,” Mallick told reporters in Dhaka on Monday.
This eighth edition of the BPL will coincide with two new money-ball franchise T20 leagues in the UAE and South Africa.
Therefore, getting top-quality overseas players is set to be a challenge for the BPL franchises. Understanding the situation, the BPL governing council has relaxed restrictions on signing overseas players for this edition.
“The franchises in the South African league and the UAE league are owned by Indians. Most top foreign players have been signed by those teams. But we also cannot postpone the tournament due to the tight schedule of the national team,” Mallick said.
“In BPL, a maximum of four foreign players are allowed to play in a team. But if any team fails to do so, they can field minimum two foreign players. We will not place any obligation on the registration of foreign players. Even if someone comes and plays for three days, another person can come to replace him,” he added.
The council also announced that there won’t be any icon players in the forthcoming edition of the BPL.
The tournament will be held in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet. There will be a total of 46 matches.
Earlier on Sunday, the council declared the list of possible franchise owners for the next three editions of the BPL.
“Initially, nine companies applied for franchise ownership, followed by two more applications. There were 11 applications in total. From that, we have finalised seven possible franchises. We are saying possible franchises because there are some financial obligations that have to be met with first.”