Bangladesh BPL cricket league suspended for overhaul

Bangladesh’s premier T20 competition, the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), will not be held this year as the troubled tournament undergoes an overhaul, the national board chief said Thursday.

“The BPL will not happen this year,” Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Tamim Iqbal told reporters, saying some franchises had breached rules and regulations.

The board was also dealing with unpaid dues and bank guarantee issues, with the BCB having suffered losses of around $3.3 million from the BPL over the past two years, according to Tamim.

“The BPL is a great product and there is a lot of interest in it. If we can do it properly, the interest will increase even more,” Tamim said.

“BCB is supposed to make a profit from franchise cricket, not a loss. So until we fix this, holding a tournament at a loss is not important,” he said.

“Our intention is 1,000 percent to host BPL. But I do not want to rush. I want to do it properly; if it takes six months or 12 months, I will take that time,” he added.

Tamim, who was recently appointed chairman of the International Cricket Council’s newly formed Franchise League Committee, said Bangladesh’s own experience with the BPL made the overhaul particularly important.

“If franchise cricket does not run properly in my country, then stopping it, and rebuilding it, will be a big message for my committee,” he said.

Tamim was speaking at the launch of the Game Development (GD) Trophy, a new tournament featuring Bangladesh’s under-17, under-19 and under-23 teams.

The board has started communicating with existing franchises and plans to complete the franchise process by April or May next year, giving it time to seek alternatives should a team default.

He also said the board was open to foreign franchises.