BPL 3 scheduled to be held from November 22

The upcoming third edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is going to get a new look as the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is planning to introduce the ‘players by choice’ system for the tournament instead of traditional players’ auction, reports New Age.

The new edition of BPL is scheduled to be held from November 22 to December 15 after two years gap. The BCB also planned to make it a six-team affair and has invited bid from interested parties to own franchises. Officials said they are getting good response from the bidders, who have to submit their interest by August 17.

A BCB director on Sunday said they already explained the potential bidders about how they are planning to go ahead with the tournament, marred by match-fixing and payment scandals. One of the new plans include a complete overhaul in players’ recruitment system, he said.

The BCB held auctions for the first two editions when franchises bought players at prices that sometimes appeared unrealistic. Many players alleged that the franchises did not play even half of their auctioned prices, putting a question a mark on the tournament. The BCB had to pay the overseas players from its own exchequer in order to save its image. The BCB could not recover the money from the franchises, which compelled it to terminate their contracts and invite fresh bids.

To make it convenient for the new franchises, the BCB decided to put a cap on their expenditure and revise the players’ recruitment system by introducing ‘players by choice’ system. The BCB previously used the system, a somewhat complex one, in 2012-13 season for the Dhaka Premier League. In the DPL, selected 189 players were divided in the seven groups and each group had separate price tag. The clubs had to take part in a lottery to determine their calling number for each category.

According to the proposed new pay-scale for BPL, highest payment for a local player will be Tk 30 lakh. As far as foreign players are concerned highest payment of a player can be raised up to $70,000 though BCB is in favour of keeping it limited to $50,000. As far as local players are concerned, the board has decided not to increase it from Tk 30 lakh. On a whole, a team will be allowed to buy maximum seven foreign players but can field four in each game.