Most of the franchises have started to move forward with their Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) teams following their acquirements during the bidding programme on Tuesday.
The players’ list has also been confirmed and given to the franchises. Eighty-two local players will be put together under three categories. Six top cricketers — Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mahmudullah Riyad, Abdur Razzak, Junaed Siddiqui, Imrul Kayes and Nasir Hossain — have been placed in Grade A with a base price of 45,000 dollars while twelve more are in Grade B with a base price of 30,000 dollars and the rest in C with 20,000 dollars.
While the former national captains are the popular choice among the team owners as selectors, advisors or managers, Sylhet has already named Pakistan great Wasim Akram as their target for the coach’s position.
Uday Hakim, a high official with the franchise, said that apart from Akram, they also want to rope in big Twenty20 names.
“Wasim Akram is our target as the coach. We want to put together a line-up to become champions,” he said.
“Players like Shahid Afridi, Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralidaran are in our sights while from the local bunch, we want to take young all-rounders. But we haven’t decided who we would take as our advisor among the former national players,” added Hakim.
On the day of the bidding programme, the Rajshahi franchise showed their cards by revealing former national captain Faruque Ahmed and former national opener Athar Ali Khan as part of the team’s think-tank. The Dhaka franchise, bought by Europa Group, said that they have sought the services of Habibul Bashar, a former national captain and a current selector.
Bashar’s boss on the selection panel, Akram Khan, is also in demand by the Barisal franchise although the owners haven’t contacted their icon player Shahriar Nafees.
It was also learned that the Chittagong franchise will have another former national captain, Khaled Mahmud, as their advisor. Mahmud was also with the Chittagong Tigers, owned by SQ Sports, when they participated in the Port City Cricket League.
Meanwhile, the BPL Governing Council and Game On Sport Management held a meeting with the franchise owners and their representatives yesterday. The commercial rights and benefits, code of conduct, playing conditions as well as other important details were discussed. The foreign players’ payment, in case of missing matches, will be according to the contracted amount divided by total number of matches multiplied by the matches played by the player.
The franchisees have been requested to recruit a head coach, an assistant coach, a physiotherapist, a physical trainer, a computer analyst and a media manager. BPL Governing Council will provide a list of foreign coaches who are interested at this moment along with local available coaches, physio and trainers. The teams have also been requested to include anti-corruption and security personnel. As for the players’ auction, the franchises will be given a comprehensive training session on January 16.
-With The Daily Star input
