The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Sunday started clearing the dues of players for their participation in the Bangladesh Premier League domestic Twenty20 competition.
The BCB disbursed Tk 2.20 crore among 65 cricketers who had remained unpaid or partially paid after the second edition of BPL. The BCB, who were the guarantor of local and international players’ payment, took the initiative of clearing the dues as it is planning to hold the third edition of BPL from November 25 to December 25.
The BPL governing council entrusted BCB’s cricket operation chairman Naimur Rahman with the responsibility of clearing the payment after discussing the matter with concerned players.
Naimur hold negotiations with the players at personal level and decided their amount keeping their base-price for the tournament in mind.
National one-day international captain Mashrafee bin Murtaza received highest $10,000 on Sunday while off-spinner Sohag Gazi received lowest $1,000.
Among others Sakib al Hasan received $6,000, which made him the highest paid player in the BPL for the second edition as he had received $71,000 from Dhaka Gladiators already.
BPL governing council chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha distributed the cheques among the cricketers including Test captain Mushfiqur Rahim and opener Tamim Iqbal.
‘It’s a big relief for us as we were the guarantor of their money,’ Afzalur told reporters at Mirpur. ‘Hopefully we can complete the payment within a day or two,’ he said.
Players, who played for Rangpur Riders, however is yet to receive payment as the franchise said they will pay the players by themselves.
BPL governing council secretary Ismail Haider Mallick assured that they won’t be left far behind.
‘We will clear them if Rangpur fails to clear,’ said Mallick. ‘They requested us that they would like to clear their players by themselves and we agreed. Probably they will take three to four days,’ he said.
Though the payments were made it could make hardly everyone happy.
‘I was expecting to receive Tk seven lakh while I got only TK 77,000 taka,’ Sohag Gazi told reporters.
Rubel Hossain claimed that he received Tk seven lakh while he was expecting Tk 20 lakh.
Naimur said that he knew it would not satisfy everyone.
‘You cannot make everyone happy,’ he said. ‘It was a difficult job. Many players had dues to their respective team. We could give them only a part.’
-With New Age input
