A curious case of overlapping

The lack of proper guidelines on hosting franchise based leagues has seen a new twist after the announcement of the players' draft of the inaugural T20 Global League, organised by Cricket South Africa (CSA). A few of the overseas players who are already committed to playing in the upcoming Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) were named in the Global League, leading to confusion.

Shahid Afridi and Cameron Delport of Dhaka Dynamites, Liam Dawson of Chittagong Vikings, Darren Sammy of Rajshahi Kings, Junaid Khan, Dawid Malan and Carlos Brathwaite of Khulna Titans have already signed with the respective franchises.

However, the confusion lingers surrounding the players who have not yet made up their minds about which league they are going to play in. West Indies' Chris Gayle, who was expected to play for Rangpur Riders, has already declared that he will be playing in the Global League.

But there are a few who have made their stance clear -- among them Shahid Afridi and Junaid Khan of Pakistan have declared that they will be playing the BPL via Twitter.

With three overseas players involved in the ongoing issue, Khulna Titans are in a critical position at the moment.

"Khulna Titans signed Malan, Junaid and Brathwaite for the BPL. All three have confirmed that they will play for Khulna Titans this year and we are confident that they will feature in our team. We learned that their names were in the Global League and have notified the BCB to look into this matter. It is surprising because we signed Junaid in March and Malan in July and have been in conversation with all three from beginning of the year," Kazi Inam Ahmed, managing director of Khulna Titans, told Daily Star yesterday.

The maiden edition of the T20 Global League is scheduled to start from November 4 while the fifth edition of the BPL is slated to begin from November 3.