Bangladesh Premier League franchise had several meeting with the governing body in the last few weeks. A new agreement was expected to be signed on the competition of the first cycle as the franchise has made some unacceptable demands to BPL governing council. However, according to BCB president, Nazmul Hasan, following those meetings, they had to eventually abandon the plan of a new cycle.
“We were expected to sign fresh agreements with the franchises and we had meetings with them. Many of the franchises had a list of observations and demands. But it is not possible to meet those demands with the BPL model we currently have,” – Nazmul said.
“There are a few franchises who also are not happy having two editions of the tournament in the same year. It is not that they do not want to participate, but they have that observation. So having considered the whole situation we will have a T20 tournament managed by the board this year. No franchises will be involved in this tournament. The tournament will be funded by the board,” – Nazmul added.
Nazmul has made an announcement that the BCB is going to conduct T20 tournament which will be similar to that of Big Bash League in Australia. Further, It will be named as the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of the nation, to mark his 100th birthday. He also said that they will start the new cycle of the BPL from 2020 with a well-set plan.
“That way the franchises will have a clear guideline of the rules and regulations and decide if they want to participate in the tournament or not,” – Nazmul said.
He also said that they are not ready to share revenues. As many franchise owners said that they are yet to get any official letter from the BCB and are waiting to see how the board wants to run the show this year. The actual problem arose from Shakib al Hasan who has decided to move to Rangpur Riders from Dhaka Dynamites, which has hurt Dynamite’s stakeholders and was not the case alone that made this route.
“Why are we only naming Shakib. There were other instances like Tamim and Mushfiq [changing their franchises]. Is it possible to do without our knowledge?
“They say that they are always at a loss but they buy a player worth TK 80 lakhs to four crores,” he said, pointing towards Shakib’s transfer fee. We won’t allow anyone to do business with cricket,” – he added.
