Bangladesh Premier League


The Bangladesh Premier League is a professional cricket league consisting of seven franchises. The BPL is one of the three professional cricket leagues in Bangladesh. It is the 16th most attended premier league in the world. In November each team face each other twice in the league stage. Following the conclusion of the regular season, top four teams advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination game and two qualifier games culminating in the Championship game, between the winner of Qualifier 1 and Qualifier 2.
The Bangladesh Premier League was formed in 2011 by the Bangladesh Cricket Board, after the suspension of its predecessor organisation, 2009/10 National Cricket League Twenty20. The first season was held during February 2012, and the games were held across Dhaka and Chittagong. The BPL is headed by the chairman of its Governing Council.
The team with the most BPL titles are Dhaka Dynamites with three titles, including two consecutive titles during the first two seasons of the tournament as Dhaka Gladiators. Comilla Victorians, Rangpur Riders and Rajshahi Royals are the only other teams to be crowned champions. The current champions are Rajshahi Royals, who defeated Khulna Tigers in BPL Season 7.
The 2020 version of BPL will be held without franchise involvement and Bangladesh Cricket Board will arrange the tournament. The decision came after the meeting between BCB and franchises owners whereas BCB failed to meet the demand placed by different team owners.

History

Following the success of franchise Twenty20 cricket leagues such as the Indian Premier League around the world, the Bangladesh Cricket Board announced a plan to replace the National Cricket League with a franchise based league. On 18 January 2012 the board entered a 6-year, 350-crore deal with Game on Sports Group to establish a franchise tournament. The deal gave the group exclusive management rights to the tournament. The league was founded with six franchises from the largest cities of Bangladesh. During the franchise auction 13 companies took part in the bidding process, with six winning the rights of each clubs.
The first edition of the league officially kicked off on 9 February 2012, excluding a lavish opening ceremony at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The initial player auction was held on 18 and 19 January 2012 and the first match in the tournament staged on 9 February 2012 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium between Sylhet Royals and Barisal Burners. The first final game was between Dhaka Gladiators and Barisal Burners, with Dhaka Gladiators emerging as champions after winning by eight wickets. All matches in the first edition of the league were held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium and Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in the country's second-largest city Chittagong.
Rangpur Riders were added as a seventh team for the second season. Dhaka Gladiators again emerged as champions beating Chittagong Kings in the final by 43 runs. Once again Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka hosted the final and most of the matches while the MA Aziz Stadium replaced the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong due to higher capacity and Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna was added as the third venue.
Following accusations of match fixing during the 2012–13 season, the owners of all six original franchises were suspended in 2013 due to constant violations of the league regulations and constant delays in players’ salary handover. The owners of Dhaka Gladiators were handed a lifetime suspension by the governing committee. A number of players and administrators were handed bans for match fixing, including the former captain of Bangladesh, Mohammad Ashraful.
Following the match fixing scandal, the league was not played in the year 2014. It returned in the 2015 with six new franchises and it was held in the winter season unlike Spring previously. Comilla Victorians won the competition, beating Barisal Bulls by three wickets. In advance of the 2016–17 edition of the league one franchise, the Sylhet Super Stars, was suspended following breaches of disciplinary regulations and two new franchises, Khulna Titans and Rajshahi Kings, were introduced, bringing the number of teams in the competition back to seven.
In the 2016 edition, Dhaka Dynamites won the tournament for the third time by defeating Rajshahi Kings in the final.
In the 2017–18 edition of the league, the Sylhet franchise returned as the Sylhet Sixers with new ownership and management. As a result, the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium was also listed as a third venue. Barisal Bulls franchise was suspended due to financial mishaps.

2019-20 special edition

In September 2019, BCB President Nazmul Hasan Papon informed the media about certain changes in rules and regulations for the 2019–20 season and eliminating all franchises, BCB took over the charge and decided to run this tournament by the board itself and named the tournament as Bangabandhu BPL T20 2019 in order to pay homage to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on his birth centenary.
Rajshahi Royals defeated Khulna Tigers by 21 runs in the final match. Royals skipper Andre Russell was elected as both Man of the match for final and Player of the Tournament for his all-round performances and leading his side for their maiden BPL title.

League organisation

At a corporate level, the Bangladesh Premier League considers itself an association made up of and financed by its member teams. All income generated through television rights, licensing agreements, sponsorship, ticket sales and other means is earned and shared between the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the participating franchises. The league is controlled by a Governing Council. As the parent organisation, the Bangladesh Cricket Board appoints the GC's members.
As of the 2018–19 season, the league consists of seven franchises. Each team players every other team twice in the round-robin stage of the competition with the teams with the top 4 advancing to a series of play-off matches. These lead to a championship match in which the league champion is decided.
Barisal and Mymensingh are the only divisions in the country to not have any representative franchise in the league.

Draft system

The BPL operates a draft system to assign players to teams. New players can be chosen by franchises during an annual draft. Teams can also choose to retain players from one yer to the next and players can also be signed outside of the draft and traded between organisations. Since 2015, Imago Sports Management has been conducting the players draft event also is the official players management partner of Bangladesh Cricket Board for Bangladesh Premier League

Tournament results

Statistics

Overall team performances

Records include all matches played under the name of a franchise, even where the franchise has been suspended and re-created as a new organisation.

Overall team standings

Team performances{{cite news|url=http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/team/results_summary.html?id=159;type=trophy |title=Cricket Records Bangladesh Premier League Records Result summary |work=ESPNcricinfo |access-date=6 February 2019}}{{cite news |url=http://stats.espncricinfo.com/bangladesh-premier-league-2015-16/engine/records/team/series_results.html?id=159&type=trophy |title=Cricket Records Bangladesh Premier League Records Series results |work=ESPNcricinfo |access-date=23 July 2016}}

Sponsorship

For the first season of the tournament, Bangladeshi conglomerate Destiny Group was the main sponsor of the tournament, negotiating a one-year sponsorship package for 75 million taka. Prime Bank Limited was awarded with the sponsorship deal for the second season for 100 million taka. BRB Cables Limited held the sponsorship rights for third season in 2015 with 150 million taka. Abul Khair Steel, a sister concern group of Abul Khair Industries Limited became the title sponsor of the fourth and fifth edition.
SeasonSponsorship RightsGross Revenues EarnedBroadcasting Rights
2012Destiny Group
Channel Nine

four-year broadcasting rights
2013Prime Bank Limited
Channel Nine

four-year broadcasting rights
2015–16BRB Cables Industries Limited
Channel Nine

four-year broadcasting rights
2016–17Abul Khair Steel and Shah Cement
Channel Nine

four-year broadcasting rights
2016–17Abul Khair Steel and Shah Cement
UnpublishedGTV and Maasranga

three-year broadcasting rights
2019–presentUnited Commercial Bank and TVS MotorUnpublishedGTV and Maasranga

three-year broadcasting rights
2019–presentAkash DTH and TVS ApacheTBDGTV and Maasranga

three-year broadcasting rights

Broadcasters

TerritoryYearsTelevisionOnline
2017–presentGTV
Maasranga		YouTube on
2017–presentFlow SportsYouTube on
2019–presentDSportYouTube on
2018–presentCRICINGIF
2017–presentGeo SuperYouTube on
2016–presentStarTimes



2017–presentTicon System Ltd.
2016–presentSportsFix
2017–presentStar GoldHotstar

2017–presentWillowHotstar
2019–presentYouTube on