Changing foreigners putting teams in trouble

The ongoing ninth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League has consistently seen the chopping and changing of squads as overseas players have only come in for a few matches rather than the whole tournament.

This situation came to be due to two other concurrent franchise T20 tournaments - SA20 in South Africa and ILT20 in the United Arab Emirates. Because of those, acquiring overseas players have become difficult for the franchises, as per comments from BPL officials earlier in the tournament.

For example, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine arrived to play for Comilla Victorians after their team was knocked out in the ILT20, whereas Reece Topley will play for Fortune Barishal after playing in both SA20 and ILT20.

Players have also been leaving early as Sylhet Strikers had to let go of Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim, Rangpur Riders of Haris Rauf, Shoaib Malik, and Mohammad Nawaz, Barishal of Iftikhar Ahmed and Mohammad Wasim Jr, and Comilla of Mohammad Rizwan and Khushdil Shah because of the Pakistan Super League. Rangpur head coach Sohel Islam said that this made their team selection and preparation difficult.

“There are too many changes (in overseas players) and there are no overseas players available. When we pick a team, we pick local players and then choose foreign players where needed. This has become very difficult. Changing two cricketers force us to change the whole team combination. This is very challenging,” he said after their match against Comilla on Friday.