The upcoming five-team Bangabandhu T20 tournament is set to be pushed back by a week from Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) President Nazmul Hassan's originally stated start date of November 15.

According to the BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury the board have received a good response from sponsors after the advertisement seeking the Expression of Interest for team sponsors, but he was reluctant to disclose the exact number of the applicants.

"As you all know we have already given the advertisement seeking sponsors for the upcoming Bangabandhu T20 tournament and we are hopeful of finalising things very soon. We have got a good response and we are yet to take the final decision… the interested sponsors will get the confirmation from the board. I am not going to disclose the exact numbers but we will try to confirm the five sponsors [for the five teams] and make the declaration," Nizamuddin told the reporters yesterday.

"We are planning to start by November 20 or it may take a couple of days more but we are progressing according to plan. What we are trying is to prepare the schedule along with the grounds and other things."

Aspects such as whether there will be icon players or if the selectors will finalise the squads are yet to be decided, and Nizamuddin said those are under process and will be disclosed within a few days.

When asked whether the tournament would be in the same format as the Bangladesh Premier League, Nizamuddin said this tournament is different as the board is trying to adapt to the new normal of playing amid a pandemic.

The board is trying to gather experience of hosting such tournaments as preparation for eventually hosting international cricket in Bangladesh.

"Look, the three-team tournament [50-over BCB President's Cup] that we arranged, although it was challenging, we managed to complete that successfully. Considering the viewership and other aspects we got a guideline on the challenges we are going to face and we will be more experienced in the coming days and have the knowledge before taking the decision to return to international cricket," he said.