Dates for next 3 BPL seasons finalised
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan on Sunday said that the board is planning to call for expression of interest for ownership of seven Bangladesh Premier League franchises for the next three seasons within next week.
The ICC is yet to finalise the Future Tour Programme (FTP) for 2023-2027. However, cricket website ESPNCrincinfo has claimed that they have acquired a near final draft of the FTP and published it on their website.
In that draft, the ICC had allotted BCB the month of January to host the BPL, as per the board’s request.
According to it, the ninth edition of the BPL will be held between 5 January, 2023 - 16 February, 2023. The 10th BPL will begin on next year’s 6 January and end on 17 February. The 2025 edition of BPL will take place from 1 January to 11 February.
After a board meeting on Sunday, the BCB president held a press conference, where he confirmed that the date of the next three BPL seasons have been finalised and the board will invite proposals for the franchise ownership very soon.
“The dates for the next three seasons of BPL have been finalised. We will give franchises ownership for three years. The tournament will be played with seven teams. As the dates have been fixed, the remaining processes will also be completed very soon. Some changes could happen. We will clarify everything in our statement. The terms and conditions will be finalised within a few days.”
Nazmul expects the previous franchise owners to once again purchase ownership of the new franchises, “Maybe not all but most of the old teams will return. There is no reason for them not to return. Gemcon, Beximco, Bashundhara could definitely come back.”
The last season of the BPL was held with six franchises. The BCB had sold rights of the teams for just one year for the special edition of the tournament held to mark the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the seventh season, only local players took part in a five-team tournament named Bangabandhu T20 Cup.