The best opportunity

It has taken two years and nine months, but the third season of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is finally here. When the skippers of Rangpur Riders and Chittagong Vikings, Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal, step out at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium at 2 pm today for the toss, a long wait will have come to an end.

Later in the evening Kumar Sangakkara's Dhaka Dynamites will take on Mashrafe Bin Mortaza's Comilla Victorians, a match expected to be a cricketing tactician's delight.

A little more than three years ago, when the inaugural season of the BPL was about to begin, there was a sense of excitement similar to one in the ground today. The players seemed pumped up, there's plenty of chatter during the training sessions and with four teams training almost simultaneously, the Mirpur stadium is abuzz.

However, as the world eventually saw, the excitement was short-lived. Marred by both on-field and off-field issues, the Bangladesh Premier League faltered even before it could take off.

Chittagong Vikings skipper Tamim Iqbal shares a light moment with his team's two Pakistani recruits. PHOTOS: FIROZ AHMED

There were payment issues, the timeline of which stretched to such an extent that the problem was solved only a few months ago. In addition, the fixing scandal, which broke soon after the second season of the competition, was arguably the biggest setback that the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had ever faced.

However, all those aspects are now in the past. The BCB is attempting to make a fresh start after a gap of nearly three years and a lot has changed. There are new franchises, there are new owners and the players' payment system has been drastically changed in order to avoid problems from the past.

Rangpur Riders' Darren Sammy and Misbahul Haq enjoy their time at training yesterday. PHOTOS: FIROZ AHMED

In a sense, all these changes were necessary. As the BCB attempts to restart the league, they will know that they have to put up their best show ever this season and there are many reasons for that.

First and the foremost is the fact that the league is taking place after a long hiatus. One expects the administrators to have learnt from their mistakes and built strategies to prevent history from repeating itself.

A smooth BPL is what the people of Bangladesh want and the best part about it is that there is every chance for that to take place.

The Pakistan Cricket Board have agreed to send their players and the Bangladesh cricketers have enjoyed their best ever run in international cricket this year. At the moment everything seems to be going the BCB's way; except the slightly precarious security scenario in the country. But then again that is an issue that has been tactfully handled by the board.

Secondly, a competitive BPL can go on to be a good launching pad for the Bangladesh cricketers ahead of the Asia Cup, which will be hosted by Bangladesh and the ICC World Twenty20 next year.

Bangladesh's last T20 series against Zimbabwe suggests that there's still plenty of room for them to improve in this format of the game. In other words, the BPL could very well be the start of Bangladesh's preparations for the mega event in India next year.

Meanwhile, there were injury two injury blows as Bangladesh left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak and Dhaka Dynamites batsman Malcolm Waller were injured during training at the BCB Academy ground in separate incidents yesterday.

Razzak suffered a hamstring injury while fielding and the player is likely to be out for a week. He will not be available for Sylhet's first two matches against the Chittagong Vikings and the Barisal Bulls.

Waller on the other hand hurt his head while batting in the nets yesterday and reportedly had to get six stitches.