Has the BPL shot itself in the foot?
After the mismanagement in the first two editions, the Bangladesh Premier League [BPL] had just begun to get organised and gain popularity worldwide over the past three editions. Once again, however, as had happened in the first two editions marred by the fixing and non-payment clouds, the shift in slot from November to January due to the upcoming national elections is threatening the franchise-based tournament's value.
The BPL governing council has already announced that the sixth edition of the tournament will take place from January 5, 2019 but they were willing to return to the regular November slot for the next edition and wanted to stage two editions of the tournament in 2019.
But the franchise owners declined the proposal for November 2019, citing financial complications attached to staging two events in the same year, thus forcing the governing council to shift the seventh edition of the BPL to March 2020. The shift in slot has already created a few technical problems for the governing council, namely the uncertainty it will cause for foreign players in an already congested international calendar.
The sixth edition of the BPL, which is set to end in February 8 next year, will directly clash with the Australian Big Bash League (BBL) which begins on December 1 and concludes on February 17.
According to sources with knowledge of the issue, Afghanistan cricketers like Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman who have been regulars in the BPL over the past few editions, prefer to play the Big Bash League in Australia ahead of the BPL in the upcoming edition.
Apart from Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, all other Test teams will be busy with national commitments as per the Future Tours Programme (FTP) during January-February next year.
Australia will host India in December-January, which will be followed by a Sri Lankan trip down under for a two-match Test series from the last week of January. New Zealand will host India for a five-ODI series after the latter complete their Australia assignment.
West Indies will host England for three Tests, five ODIs and three T20Is from January while Pakistan will tour South Africa during that period for the same set of matches. Meanwhile, the Global T20 League in South Africa -- a new tournament also scheduled in November -- will certainly gain ground over their time-slot competitors.
"As you know we wanted to host two editions of the tournament in the same year but the franchises denied the proposal because of budget and other aspects. We also have the ICC Test Championship coming up so we have to keep that in mind. We will try to adjust the time slot gradually to return to our popular slot, which is November, but for that both governing council and the franchise owners have to come to an agreement," Jalal Yunus, chairman of the Bangladesh Cricket Board's media committee told The Daily Star yesterday.
There is a precedent for the BPL's current predicament, and it came in a tournament that the Bangladeshi version aspires to. In its second edition in 2009, the Indian Premier League could not be held during its usual time slot because of elections in the country, but instead of shifting the time slot, the Indian board took the decision to hold the tournament in South Africa, thus maintaining the interest and player availability.
That may have raised costs, but in the long term it proved beneficial because it upheld the quality of the IPL. As such tournaments draw a lot of value from the foreign stars, the BPL and the franchise owners may have shot themselves in the foot just after starting to gain some credibility.