BCL to add one-day format

A separate one-day league will be added to the existing four-day matches of Bangladesh Cricket League in the upcoming edition, scheduled to start in early December, said Bangladesh Cricket Board director Khaled Mahmud.

BCL is a franchise-based four-day match tournament, where Walton and Islami Bank own two of the franchises out of four.

Prime Bank had one franchise, and the other was owned by BCB. But as Prime Bank pulled out, BCB now controls two franchises.

Introduced in the 2012-13 season, BCL was added to the cricket calendar as the second first-class domestic cricket tournament, but a separate single-league one-day tournament will also take place in the upcoming edition, said Mahmud.

“We are thinking about introducing one-day matches in BCL because we haven't played ODIs in a long time. So, we will have a one-day BCL also in single-league format. The top two teams will play in the final,” Mahmud told the media on Thursday.

Rabiul Islam, additional director of Walton Group, told The Business Post that the franchises are also interested in a limited-over format.

“As the South Africa series is coming up and the last edition of Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League was held in the T20 format, one-day is a good option for us,” he said.

The matches of the four-day league will probably take place at Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar, while for the one-day league, the tentative venue is Sylhet, where there are two grounds in close vicinity.

The finals of both the tournaments are tentatively scheduled to take place in the Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur.

For better preparation for the T20 World Cup, where Bangladesh performed poorly, the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis switched the format of Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League to T20 from the usual 50-over matches.

The last 50-overs domestic tournament was the 2019-20 season of DPL, which got postponed after three rounds of play due to an escalation in covid-19 infection around the country.

After that, domestic cricket resumes with the newly introduced BCB President’s Cup and to date, that was the last domestic one-day tournament.

The Tigers suffered in the T20 World Cup due to their habit of playing in slow and low pitches. Mahmud said that the grounds committee had been instructed to prepare better quality wickets.

“We have asked the grounds department to prepare better and bouncy wickets. We will start the tournament around December 7 to 10,” he said.

Pakistan will be coming to Bangladesh immediately after their T20 World Cup campaign and they will be playing three T20Is and two Tests that will mark the beginning of the new cycle of the ICC Test Championship for the Tigers.

The second Test is scheduled to end on December 8 which means the national team players might not be available for the upcoming edition of BCL, but Mahmud said that the show must go on.

“If we think about accommodating all the national team players, then there will not be any local cricket in Bangladesh. We have to organise BCL without them as they will be leaving for New Zealand right after the Test series against Pakistan. So, they will miss out on BCL,” said Mahmud, who is likely to be appointed as Team Director of the Bangladesh Cricket Team.

Mahmud is now supervising a camp of seven cricketers to grow their T20 skills. He expects that the selectors will soon announce the team for the Pakistan series.

“I want the team to be announced as early as possible. We will start working with the players from November 13. Hopefully, the team will be announced by then. The coaching staff members will also arrive in the meantime,” said the former captain.