2nd BPL set to kick off Jan 18

The second edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is all set to kick-off on January 18 with the opening ceremony taking place on January 17, 2013.

BPL Governing Council Chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha along with other senior dignitaries of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) officially announced the date at a media conference held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Friday.

The players’ auction will be held on December 20, however, the players’ list were not disclosed.

The tournament will see Rangpur Division as its seventh team. Game On Sports, the India based company that manages BPL will hold an internal bidding and later name the franchisee of team Rangpur within a day or two.

Dr IH Mallick, member of BCB ad-hoc committee informed that all the necessary paper-works and contracts between BCB and the current franchises will be finalised ahead of the players’ auction.

“We are yet to finalise the agreements with the franchises. Hopefully we will complete it within December 20. The discussions that we had with all the franchisees were fruitful and we were able to decide the clauses that should be in the agreement,” Mallick said.

One of the important clauses in the agreement was about the players’ payment. Mallick informed that the franchisees have agreed to pay 25% of the players’ fee before a side’s first match in the tournament, another 25% before the last match of the season and the rest within six months of the end of the tournament. The franchisees will make the players’ payment through BCB, the guarantor.

Meanwhile, chairman of BPL GC, Afzalur Rahman Sinha informed that some of the disputes between the franchisees and BPL GC are yet to be resolved as the amount of time the body got to arrange the tournament was too short compared to the amount of work that is to be done.

“The time was too short for us to solve the disagreements that rose after the last tournament. But we wanted to keep the ball rolling. We have listened to what the stake holders have to say, solved the majority of the issues, and we will definitely solve the rest very soon,” said Afzalaur Rahman Sinha.

BCB president Nazmul Hasan, who was also present in the media briefing pointed out that unavailability of legal documents between the BPL stakeholders gave way to most of the disputes.

Despite the time constraint, we have tried our best to address all the major problems and have solved majority of it. The stakeholders never had any legal documents, which has made the possibilities to reach a legal solution all the more difficult,” said the BCB president.

“The second BPL will be transparent and everyone involved will have a clear idea of their role as everything will be on pen and paper. So none will have the option to cross their limitations,” he added.

Nazmul Hasan also informed that none of the BCB directors and employees will be allowed to involve themselves in the tournament from where one can be financially benefited.