The governing council of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has decided on the grade and the salary slab of the cricketers for the upcoming edition, which is scheduled to be held in the first week of January next year.
As some top-level T20 tournaments coincide with BPL, there is the apprehension of getting enough quality foreign players but despite that the governing council won't back out from their decision to hold the tournament as scheduled, BPL member secretary IH Mallick said.
"You know that the South African league, and UAE league are owned by Indian franchisees. Most of the foreign players have been signed there. We also cannot postpone the tournament due to the tight schedule of the national team," Mallick said on Monday.
"In that case, the thing is that a maximum of four foreign players can play in a team but if any team fails to do so, they can field a minimum of two foreign players. We'll not place any obligation on the registration of foreign players. Even if someone comes and plays for three days, another person can come to replace him."
As usually separate remuneration is fixed for the local and foreign players with the highest category of domestic cricketers getting Tk 80 lakh while foreign with the highest category getting a maximum of US$ 80,000, reports BSS.
The matches will be held at three venues in Dhaka, Chattogram, and Sylhet. There will be a total of 46 matches.
While in every edition, BPL governing council kept a special category Icon player, this time the authority said there won't any Icon players.
However, a foreign cricketer can be included in the team on a direct signing. Apart from this, cricketers have to be bought from players drafted in 7 categories.
The highest category for the local players is 'A', the lowest is 'G'. Maximum TK 80 lakhs and minimum TK 0.50 million is fixed as the remuneration according to the category. Foreign 'A' category cricketer's salary is US$ 80,000.
IH Mallick said, the value of the draft will be for 'A' grade 8.0 million, 'B' grade 5.0 million, 'C' grade 3.0 million, 'D' grade 2.0 million, 'E' grade 1.50 million, 'F' grade 1.0 million and 'G' grade 0.50 million.
"Our BPL period is from January 6 to February 16. At the same time two or three top-level tournaments in the world will be held," Mallick said in Dhakhere today.
"We had nine companies initially apply for a franchise, followed by two more applications. There were about 11 applications in total. From that, we have finalized seven possible franchises. We are saying 'possible franchises'--that because of this we have some financial issues that they need to meet."
Mallick further informed that one direct local signing will be allowed this time while there is no limitation for the direction contract for the foreign players as there will be stiff competition to get the quality foreign recruit due to some top-level T20 tournaments.
"We will allow one local direct signing. The rest should be taken from the draft. We didn't give any limitation in case of direct singing for foreign and that you know is understandable."