BPL fixes salary slab of players amid overseas players' crisis

Dhaka, 26 Sept - The governing council of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has decided 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 coincides with BPL, there is 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 South African league, 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 here today.

"In that case, the thing is that maximum four foreign players can play in a team but if any team fails to do so, they can field minimum 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 foreigner players with the highest category domestic cricketers getting Tk 80 lakh while foreign with highest category getting a maximum of US$ 80,000.

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 direct signing. Apart from this, cricketers have to be bought from players draft in 7 categories.

The highest category for local player is 'A', the lowest is 'G'. Maximum TK 80 lakhs and minimum TK 5 lakhs 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 80 lakhs, 'B' grade 50 lakhs, 'C' grade 30 lakhs, 'D' grade 20 lakhs, 'E' grade 15 lakhs, 'F' grade 10 lakhs and 'G' grade 5 lakh.

 "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 here
today.

"We had nine companies initially apply for 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."