Bangladesh Premier League, consists of seven franchises, is a professional Cricket league. It is one of the three professional cricket leagues in Bangladesh. It is one of the 16th most-attended premier league. It happens in November where each team faces each other twice in the league stage. And after the regular season, the top four teams advance to the playoffs, and a single-elimination game and two qualifier games culminating in the Championship game, between the winner of Qualifier 1 and Qualifier 2. It was formed in the year 2011.
Headed by the chairman of its governing council, by the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the first season was held during February 2012. These games happened at Dhaka and Chittagong. It happened after the suspension of the 2009-10 National Cricket League Twenty 20. According to the statistics, the most titles of the BPL was earned by the Dhaka Dynamites. They collected around three titles and out of these three, two were consecutive wins from the first two seasons. The teams which joined them in the winners’ list were Comilla Victorians and Rangpur Riders. In the latest season, Comilla Victorians emerged as the defending champions in the season 6 of Bangladesh Premier League.
Bangladesh Premier League Teams
1. Chittagong Vikings (Owned By The Dbl Group Under The Captaincy Of Mushfiqur Rahim And Coach Simon Helmet) They had their home venue Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.
2.Comilla Victorians (Owned By Nafisa Kamal, Mustafa Kamal, Legends Sporting Limited Under The Captaincy Of Imrul Kayes And Coach Mohammad Salahuddin).
4. Khulna Titans (Owned By Gemcon Group Under The Captaincy Of Mahmudullah And Coach Mahela Jayawardene).
3. Dhaka Dynamites (Owned By Shayan F. Rahman, Salman F. Rahman Bemixco Group Under The Captaincy Of Shakib Al Hasan And Coach Khaled Mahmud) They had their home venue at Sher-e-Bangla International stadium.
5. Rajshahi Kings (Owned By Mango Entertainment Under The Captaincy Of Mehedi Hasan And Coach Lance Klusener).
6. Rangpur Riders (Owned By Ahmed Akhbar Sobhan, Safwan Sobhan Bashundhara Group Under The Captaincy Of Mashrafe Mortaza And Coach Tom Moody).
7. Sylhet Sixers (Owned By Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Shahid Muhith, Sylhet Sports Limited Under The Captaincy Of Alok Kapali And Coach Waqar Younis). They had their home venue at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.
8. Barisal Bulls (Declared As A Defunct Team).
BPL History
Seeing the huge success of the franchise twenty 20 cricket leagues such as the IPL (Indian Premier League) around the entire world, now the Bangladesh Cricket Board has announced the replace the National Cricket League(NCL) with another such type of an IPL. Then came the establishment if a tournament of a 6 year and 350 crore deal to establish a franchise-based league on 18th January 2012. Across the largest cities of Bangladesh, six franchises were chosen for this league. In the bidding process 6 companies made through the rights of each club where 13 companies took part in the auction ceremony. The first season of the league was on the 9th of February 2012 and the grand ceremony was performed at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium located at Dhaka. The first match took place between Barisal Burners and Sylhet Royals and it was held at the beautifully organized Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Dhaka.
The season finale was held between Dhaka Gladiators and Barisal Burners where Dhaka Gladiators emerged as the defending champions of the first premier league. All the matches of the league took place at Zohur Ahmed Choudhury Stadium in the second largest city of Bangladesh, Chittagong and Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium located at Dhaka.
After the end of an interesting first season, the second season came as a big hit as well and there were few changes like there was an introduction of a new team, Rangpur Riders. The famous Sher-e-Bangla stadium again hosted the final of the second season where again Dhaka Gladiators rose as the winners against Chittagong Kings in the season finale by 43 runs. Though Sher-e-Bangla hosted many other matches also, Zohur Ahmed Choudhury Stadium was replaced with Sheikh Abdul Nasir Stadium in the third-largest city of Bangladesh, Khulna and MA Aziz Stadium as these are more spacious.
but there were conflicts and a lot of issues related to match-fixing, delay in giving the salary to the players which created a misunderstanding between them and these accusations led to the suspension and dismiss of all the six original franchises during the year 2012-13. These were due to the breaking of the norms and regulations. Not only these things but also, the captain of Dhaka Gladiators, Mohammad Ashraful who was even the former captain of Bangladesh Cricket team was suspended due to the charges of match-fixing and breaking of rules. Even, Dhaka Gladiators were given a lifetime suspension by the administrative officers and the governing bodies. This scandal took place in 2013 for which the further matches were canceled in the year 2014 also.
However, the governing body decided to resume the matches for which they again started the premier league in the year 2015 with six new franchises. The winners were Comilla Victorians and they bet Barisal Bulls by three wickets. The auction ceremony happened in the winter season regardless of the spring season auction of the first season. Again, a dispute came out when in the year 2016-17, during the beginning of the league, Sylhet Superstars were suspended on breaking the basic regulations and discipline. Now after all these breaches, the committee decided to introduce another team to the present 5, now bringing the number to 7. The new teams were Rajshahi Kings and Khulna Titans. In the year 2016, Dhaka Dynamites were declared as the winners as they defeated the Rajshahi Kings. This was the third win and a huge achievement for them in the tournament. This marked the great ending of the amazing season.
Now came the 2017-18 new season of the Bangladesh Premier League and in this new edition, came the former suspended team, Sylhet Sixers of the Sylhet Franchise and they were completely new with new team members, managing committee. As a great comeback took place, the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium was listed as the third venue and another team, Barisal Bulls franchise was suspended due to some financial disputes.
Bangladesh Premier League Board
This is an important portion to be well understood about the Bangladesh Premier League(BPL) where it is headed upon by the GC (Governing Council). GC is appointed and selected by the Bangladesh Cricket Board. This is a huge association between the members and the finance is divided among the team members. The income is generated through the rights collected from the television, satellite rights, ticket sales, sponsorship and the money collected is shared between the fellow franchisees and the Bangladesh Cricket Board.
This is the corporate level organization of the Bangladesh Premier League. According to the sources, in the season of 2018-19, the premier league will consist of again the seven franchises. There will be play-offs, qualifiers, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals as well. After all these competing matches the one winner will be chosen. There are changes in this season as well, where Barisal didn’t have a representative franchise for which it couldn’t participate in the season. The administrative members have decided to increase the number of the participating franchises from 7 to the number 9 and these nine teams will include the Noakhali Franchise and the Barisal Franchise, possibly. These are the plans for the 2019-20 premier league of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Premier League Sponsorship
The season one of the premier leagues was financed by the Destiny Group and they were the major sponsor of Bangladesh Premier League. They offered 75 million takas (US $1.0 million). After this, the major sponsors were Prime Bank Limited and they provided around 100 million takas (the US $ 1.5 million) for the second season of the premier league. Then, in the year 2015-16, BRB cables came with the sponsorship of around 15 crores Takas (approx the US $1.8 million). Abul Khair Steel and Shah cement (a sister concern of Abul Khair Industries Limited) then came up with the sponsorship of 22 crores (approx the US $2.6 million) during 2016-17. Now, 2019-present is sponsored by TVS Motors and United Commercial Bank.
The broadcasting rights of the initial seasons of the Bangladesh Premier League were given to Channel Nine (632 crores Takas/the US $75 million approx.). They had the broadcasting rights from the year 2012 to 2016. The final seasons were broadcasted by Maasranga, GTV (640 crores Takas/ the US $76 million)
Major Broadcasters of The League
1. Gtv Maasranga (Bangladesh)
2. Flow Sports Carribean Islands
3. DSport India
4. Geo Super Pakistan
5. Startimes Sub-Saharan African
6. Star Gold (United Kingdom)
7. Willow (The United States And Canada)
8 Ticon System Limited (South Korea, Japan, China, Russia)
