The Bangladesh Premier League's governing council has decided to bring ahead the dates of the players' Draft Programme, an event where the BPL franchises will be able to buy their players, to October 22.

The irregularity with regards to the governing council's decisions continued yesterday as it was the third time that the body decided to shift the dates of the players' auction. Initially, it was supposed to take place on October 31. Last week, that date was shifted to October 26. And finally, a press release sent by the BCB yesterday announced that the programme would take place on Thursday.

According to BPL governing council member-secretary, IH Mallick, the date was shifted as per the request of the franchises.

"The national players are expected to begin their camp for the Zimbabwe series later this month and during that time the franchises won't get any access to the players. They will have very little time to interact with them about their commercial activities and so they asked us to shift the dates," said Mallick.

Earlier, the governing council declared Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Nasir Hossain and Mahmudullah Riyad as the icon players of the tournament. They will be earning the highest, Tk 35 lakh, amongst the local players. Their teams will be decided based on a lottery during the auction on Thursday.

Apart from the six of them, the BCB also revealed a list of 117 local players and 196 foreign players who have been registered for the tournament.