Bangladesh Premier League is set to start !!

Soon,  Barisal Burners, Chittagong Kings, Dhaka Gladiators, Duronto Rajshahi, Khulna Royal Bengal, Sylhet Royals – would become household names.  If you wonder who or what they are ? – here is something :  Barisal  is an old port on the Kirtankhola on the northern shore of the Bay of Bengal in southern Bangladesh and it is 142 km (373 km by road)  away from capital city Dhaka.  Similarly Chittagong, Dhaka, Duronto, Khulna, Sylhet are places in Bangladesh.

Success breeds success as everyone tries to replicate the most successful model.  BPL does not mean ‘below poverty line’ in Cricket and after the grand success of ‘Indian Premier Leageu (IPL)’, the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is born !!  The 6 divisional cities were chosen as the franchise teams to participate in the tournament. Among the 7 divisions in Bangladesh 6 of them were chosen with the exception of Rangpur. It has been left out as it doesn't have much cricketing background and is a newer division. Bangla Cricket Board  is expecting full crowd support from the people of the respective divisions.

Bangladesh Premier league opening ceremony will be arranged in world class standard. For this, a number of Indian companies submitted their proposals. This includes one of the Bollywood actor Chunky Pandey.  The opening ceremony will be for 2 and half hour. The culture and history of freedom fighting of Bangladesh will be display in this show. For BPL opening ceremony, popular bollywood star Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor,Deepika Padukone are likely to be present. The popular singers Shaan, Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan will also arrive Dhaka in that time for BPL.

The Bangladesh Premier League 2012 (BPL) season will be the first season of the Bangladesh Premier League. The season will commence on the 9th of February with the final to be played on the 29th of February 2012.  The competition will start with a double round robin group stage, in which each of the 6 teams will play against every other team twice. These matches will followed by two semi-finals and a final. Just as we had in IPL, the  highest wicket taker will win the purple cap for being the top wicket-taking bowler while the highest run scorer will win the orange cap for leading run-scorer in the tournament. Best young player will be awarded the best under-19 player award and the special award for Fair Play will be won by the team who will play most fairly throughout the tournament.   Matches will be held in Dhaka and Chittagong with a total of six franchises taking part.

The franchise auction was held on January 10.  The players auction for the 2012 Bangladesh Premier League was held on January 19, 2012 at the Hotel Radisson, Dhaka. Each franchise can sign a total of 10 local players & 8 foreign players and can play up to 5 foreign players in each match. Each franchise will also have one domestic icon player in their team. Players were allowed to set their base price between $20,000 to $100,000.

If you ever had misconceived notion of Bangaldesh being a poor Nation, here are some of the top buys in the auction :-

Player	Team	Winning bid	Base price	In Ind Rs
Shahid Afridi	Dhaka Gladiators	$700,000	$100,000	34,272,000
Chris Gayle	Barisal Burners	$551,000	$100,000	26,976,960
Marlon Samuels	Duronto Rajshahi	$360,000	$50,000	17,625,600
Kieron Pollard	Dhaka Gladiators	$300,000	$100,000	14,688,000
Nasir Hossain	Khulna Royal Bengal	$200,000	$45,000	9,792,000
Shoaib Malik	Chittagong Kings	$150,000	$100,000	7,344,000
Dwayne Bravo	Chittagong Kings	$150,000	$100,000	7,344,000
Brad Hodge	Barisal Burners	$140,000	$100,000	6,854,400
Mahmudullah	Chittagong Kings	$110,000	$45,000	5,385,600
Jahurul Islam	Chittagong Kings	$110,000	$30,000	5,385,600
Sanath Jayasuriya	Khulna Royal Bengal	$110,000	$100,000	5,385,600

Yes  Pakistan’s Shahid Afrid bought at Rs.3.42 crores and  West Indian ** Chris Gayle at 2.697 crores !!!   ** He is not picked by the WI Board, he is not playing for the Country but would play in all invitational tourneys, at Australia, India, Bangla, Lanka and perhaps in any other smaller places also..  as long as money keeps flowing nobody would like to bother !!

So Bangla Board, officials and players would become cash rich – whether it would do the game any good – nobody would bother

However, there is a very important difference between IPL & BPL.  IPL richly benefitted players of Australia, South Africa and a few from England and Newzealand but none from  Associate nations, with exception Netherlands allrounder Ryan ten Doeschate.   Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), however, stands to be a different proposition.  One of its  rule requires each of the six franchises to buy at least one player from an Associate country, a nod to Bangladesh's own history as an Associate.  The players who were snapped up at the player auction earlier this month were Alex Kervezee (Netherlands), Kyle Coetzer (Scotland), Rizwan Cheema (Canada), Niall O'Brien (Ireland), Hamid Hassan (Afghanistan) and Freddie Klocker (Denmark). For them, the league is an opportunity to showcase their talents alongside international stars and in front of packed stadiums.  As one can recall, Cheema hammered 93 off 71 balls against England in a practice match before the 2011 World Cup to become an instant star in Dhaka. He was bought by Duronto Rajshahi for US$25,000. Cheema will be playing alongside the likes of West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels, Pakistan allrounder Abdul Razzaq and South Africa legspinner Imran Tahir.  At 22, Alexei Kervezee is the youngest of the Associate country players to be bought. Despite his relative youth, he has already played two World Cups and has played with Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan at Worcestershire. He was bought by Dhaka Gladiators for $35,000.- and he will play alongside  Kieron Pollard, Saeed Ajmal and  Stuart MacGill. 

Besides performance, these players would also be eyeing on a lucrative IPL contract in future. 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.