The eighth edition of the Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League has finally started amid a Covid-19 surge across the country. On the very first day of the tournament, Fortune Barishal and Khulna Tigers acquired their win.
Once regarded as the 2nd best franchise tournament in the world, BPL has constantly failed to establish its own identity. The ever-changing shuffle of franchises, and with it their names, is enough to terminate its popularity.
BPL has been mired in controversy since its beginning. From payment issues, lack of sustainable planning, a failure to form a specific set of rules to even the tragic occurrence of spot-fixing, the BPL seemed well behind generating the promised brand of cricket in its first two editions.
Those issues are now solved, and we do not hear of the payment issues anymore. Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) was able to mend the league in 2015 with renewed commitment and vision. The promise was kept, but for that one season only.
But new sets of issues arose in the BPL over the years; franchises have often failed to regain investment due to the BPL governing body’s spineless financial structure. As a coincidence, franchises have stepped down from sponsorships continuously. Dhaka’s team has started with the name Dhaka Gladiators, changed to Dhaka Dynamites and now it stands as Minister Group Dhaka. The same scenario is seen if we look at the other regional teams.
The main goal of the BPL – is to produce and boost the youngsters by creating an opportunity by sharing the turf with national and international level players hasn’t seen much success yet. After 10 years, we can barely name a national team player whose origin was the BPL. It’s right that many players have flourished in the BPL, but they failed to keep up to their mark at the international levels.
Now the question stands as will this edition bring a change or it will follow the same old flow of the BPL? Or will the BPL finally take a step in the right direction to assemble its uniqueness by getting rid of the issues? To know the answers, we’ll need to keep an eye on the BPL 2022.
