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The current Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), which is led by Tamim Iqbal, previously confirmed that there will be no Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) for a few years. Now, Bangladesh's state minister for youth and sports, Aminul Haque, provided an update on the continuation of the BPL, as he revealed that the government and the BCB will sit down and discuss it.
It is the premier franchise league of Bangladesh and was invented in 2011 by the BCB, after the suspension of its predecessor organisation, the 2009/10 National Cricket League Twenty20. The first season of the tournament took place in 2012 and kept on going till 2025, with six franchises in the competition, as Dhaka Gladiators were the champions.
When will BPL start?
The Tamim Iqbal-led BCB decided to temporarily stop the tournament due to financial losses of around 40 Crore BDT suffered by the board. They decided the league will start again once they fix the issues. But Tamim, back in August, also revealed that they do not have the exact timeline for when the tournament will resume.
The six franchise owners also gave a green signal to the decision. But the cricketers did not agree to it, and they were against it, as they believed that they had a major source of income while playing in the tournament, and stopping the tournament would cause problems for them and their future.
Back in July, according to reports from Prothom Alo, the BCB planned that if they did not find any kind of good franchises and quality of cricket could not be ensured. They felt that the competition should have quality, as they wanted to skip one season and try to reconstruct the league structure and everything. However, now it is suspended until further notice.
"I wasn't aware": Aminul Haque on BCB stopping BPL
Now, Aminul Haque, while speaking with the reporters in Dhaka, stated that the tournament is a famous tournament and it should not be stopped, as he was unaware of the fact that the tournament would be stopped. He also feels that a competition should happen every year.
“I only got to know from you (media) just now, I wasn't aware BPL will not take place. BPL is a popular tournament for Bangladesh,” Aminul told reporters in Dhaka on Sunday (as quoted by Cricbuzz)
"You're saying the board president presented some logical reasons to you all. I think a tournament like the BPL should be held every year,” he said.
“Why it didn't happen, we need to discuss. We will obviously monitor in future that this kind of competition takes place regularly," he concluded.
BCB increases salary of domestic players
Amidst this, the BCB increased the salary of its cricketers, including men's and women's cricket, in domestic cricket. Tamim-Iqbal confirmed the salary hike on August 3 through the media.
For every first-class match, men’s cricketers will receive Tk 1.5 lakh instead of Tk 70,000, and for the List A matches, the salary has been doubled from Tk 50,000 to Tk 1 lakh per match. And for the domestic T20 matches, cricketers will receive Tk 80,000 instead of Tk 40,000 for each match.
