Shawdesh Desk:

With the international season now over and plans for next home series against Afghanistan still waiting to take shape, Bangladesh Cricket Board finally managed some time to put attention on the next edition of Bangladesh Premier League.

But the cricket’s governing body started sweating to put things in order at the very beginning as the owner of one franchise already announced to pull out from the Twenty20 tournament and the fate of another franchise is also uncertain.

The owners of Chittagong Vikings formally informed the BCB that they will not continue with the tournament while the owners of Sylhet Sixers were left in two minds over continuing in the cash-rich event.

Faced with no other alternatives, the BCB already sought Expression of Interest from interested corporate house, companies, consortium or individual owner for buying two franchises in the tournament.

‘Chittagong owners informed us they were not continuing. But we were yet to hear anything from Sylhet. Now, if they [Sylhet] want to continue they are welcome. Otherwise we are open to take new franchise,’ said Bangladesh Cricket Board chief executive officer Nizamuddin Chowdhury.

Nizamuddin said BCB’s agreement with the franchises ended this season and they will renew it without adding any fresh terms and condition.

If Sylhet finally decides to continue and renew the agreement, the BCB will take only the replacement of Chattogram team.

Acting BPL governing council chairman Sheikh Sohel ruled out the chance of bringing back the Barisal Bulls franchise that was kicked out in 2017 for payment dispute.

‘We will not add any franchise in BPL and will hold the next edition with seven teams as there are logistic issues involved,’ said Sohel.

However, BCB officials said two new franchises could come from any division depending on the choice of new owners.

Acting BPL chairman Sohel said they will settle these matters once the deadline for receiving Expression of Interest for new franchises ends on August 20.

The other franchises meanwhile kept announcing recruitment of players for the upcoming season, creating a new headache for the BPL authorities.

Former champions Rangpur Riders recently announced to secure the service of ace all-rounder Sakib al Hasan as their A+ player, without clearing their plan about Mashrafee bin Murtaza.

Mashrafee played for Rangpur as their only A+ player and barring a dramatic development his category is unlikely to be changed.

Rangpur said they are still interested to keep Mashrafee as one of their four retained players, though it requires either a change in his category or in tournament rule that will allow more than one A+ player in each team.

Obaid Nizam, the chief executive officer of Dhaka Dynamites, where Sakib played last three seasons, expressed his surprise by the announcement of Rangpur.

‘We want to act by the rule but the problem is that we don’t know whether the rule has been changed. I am confused as the BCB did not inform us anything,’ he said.

‘Sakib is one of my favourite players and there is no question of us releasing him. We will always want to retain him. But before we retained the players we have to be asked by the BCB who we actually want to retain. We are yet to hear anything from BCB over it,’ he said.

BCB chief executive Nizamuddin admitted there is a ‘grey area’ in BPL rules but hoped that all disputes would be resolved amicably.

‘We will see if it happened mutually. If not, BPL governing council will settle the matter as per rules,’ he said.

The seventh edition of BPL will kick off with an opening ceremony on December 3 and the first match of the competition will be on December 6.