BPL 6 likely to start Jan 5

The sixth edition of the BPL T20 is likely to begin on January 5, 2019. The proposal came in a meeting between the BPL governing council and the seven franchises of the tournament.

The meeting was the first of its kind between the two parties and organised in order to plan a better tournament going ahead. The BPL GC and the franchises came to several decisions, including the dates for the next edition of the tournament, and these decisions will now be forwarded to the BCB for approval. 

As discussed in the meeting, the next edition of the BPL will be held in January and end on February 8. The BPL is usually held in November-December but the change was made keeping the national election in mind. The upcoming national election is likely to take place by the end of December.

"It was an informal meeting with the franchises. We will hold more meetings like this to take the BPL forward, at least once each month to voice each other's grievances," said BPL GC technical committee member Jalal Younus to the media at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka Sunday.

"We have finalised the January 5 to February 8 window for the BPL's sixth edition. We would like to do the draft in October, which will be informed later. We have heard that the general election is supposed to be held at the end of December, which is why we have selected this date. But if the election date changes, we will adjust it accordingly," BCB director Jalal explained.

Decision on the retention of players was taken in the meeting. It was also decided that a franchise can play maximum four foreign players in the starting XI. 

"The previous decision of retaining four players, including local and foreign, remains in place. We took the decision after taking the franchises’ suggestion," Jalal informed.

"There was also discussion over how many players can be directly signed by a franchise. We want to limit that number too. We will decide this later. But at the moment, we don't want to talk about it," Jalal said.

It was however, learnt that limitation on signing overseas players was proposed. As per the proposal, a franchise can directly sign maximum three overseas cricketers and minimum of two, and cannot register more than eight overseas players for the season. Further inclusion can only be made if an existing player gets injured or goes unavailable. 

The number of local registered players meanwhile, cannot exceed 12. Previously there was no limit to directly signing of overseas players by a franchise.

The BPL GC and the franchises had also reached common ground of including DRS (Decision Review System) and of having at least one overseas umpire in a game. The final calls on the agendas will however, be made by the BCB executive committee.