BPL: From “world’s second-best” to “best domestic” league

There was a time when Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) officials used to claim that Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) was the second-best Twenty20 cricket league in the world.

BPL was positioned right after Indian Premier League (IPL), according to them. But now they say, they are working to make BPL “one of the best leagues” in the country.

The next season of BPL is slated to take place from early January to mid-February, 2023. BCB has already declared names of the owners of the seven participating franchises. If all goes well, the franchises will be finalised soon after the prospective owners pay the bank guarantee of Tk 100 million.

At least two other leagues are scheduled to be played at the same time as BPL. As a result, BPL may not be able to draw the attention of the best foreign players. Many of them have already signed contracts with teams of two other leagues in the UAE and South Africa.

Ismail Haider Mallick, member secretary of the BPL governing council, said on Monday, “BPL was a good T20 event when there were not many leagues like it.”

“Now too many leagues are there – CPL (Caribbean Premier League) is happening, PSL (Pakistan Super League) is here, UAE is going to host a league and South Africa is also in the scene. Now, it’s tough to compare (BPL) with other (international) leagues. We want to make it one of the best domestic leagues.”

The first edition of BPL was played in 2012. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) started PSL four years after that. While BPL is still trying to establish its brand, PSL is generating a lot of money for PCB.

“It costs a lot to host an event like BPL,” Ismail said. “To make it bigger, we have to sell the ownership of a franchise for a lot of money. But the reality is, we cannot even host it as a home-and-away event. We don’t have enough venues for it. What we are looking forward to is to make it one of our best domestic events.”

Since BPL may fail to draw the attention of foreign players this season, BCB is going to relax conditions. Ismail said, a franchise will be able to sign a foreign player at any point of the tournament and they will also be able to sign a foreign player for any period of time.

It means, if a franchise gets a player for only two matches, they are allowed to sign the player. At the same time, Ismail said, a franchise can play two foreign players in a match instead of four.

BCB has already fixed the remuneration of the players. According to BCB, the local players in the A category will get Tk eight million while players in the lowest category will generate half a million taka.

Every team is allowed to sign one local player directly out of the draft, but there is no limit to signing a foreign player. BCB will not decide how much money a team will pay to recruit a foreign cricketer outside the draft.