DPL T20 will be a permanent fixture in domestic calendar: Nazmul
BCB Chief Nazmul Hasan. -Cricfrenzy
||CF Correspondent||
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hasan said that the newly introduced Dhaka Premier League Twenty20 will be a permanent fixture in the domestic calendar.
The announcement came after the final of the inaugural edition of the tournament that was launched by BCB among the participant clubs of the DPL, country’s prestigious 50-over Dhaka-based club tournaments.
Lt Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club defeated Prime Doleshwar Sporting Club by 24 runs in the final at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Monday
“We were always told that without national players we don’t want play 50 overs matches in the domestic circuit and the enthusiasm is even lesser in Twenty20 cricket. We wanted to come out of it and we did,’’ Nazmul told reporters after the final.
“Whether the national players are available or not we will organize this tournament every year and I firmly believe this will go on because this does not have the relationship with national players,’’ he said
“This will happen along with the Premier League or even if there is no Premier League this tournament will still go on. We wanted to arrange such a tournament for a long time but now we are to arrange it and it is quite satisfying,’’ he said.
According to BCB, the entire initiative was taken as part of promoting the shorter version of the game among the local cricketers - their weakest link across formats.
BCB wanted to make this T20 tournament a breeding hub for the Bangladesh Premier League, country's franchise-based T20 tournament as well as create a pipeline for the national team as well.
In Bangladesh, there is only one Twenty20 tournament - BPL - while some other Test playing nations have several T20 tournaments and, as a result, their growth in the shorter formats is quite high.
While BPL is dominated by foreign cricketers and some leading major stars of the national set-up, it has hardly been productive in developing local cricketers as most of them are ignored by the franchises.
As a result, Bangladesh failed to produce quality T20 players in the last five years despite BPL's success.
Despite launching the DPL T20 tournament there were always doubts whether it will be able to hold the enthusiasm among the 12 clubs as they were often reluctant to play the DPL without the national players.
It was often observed that the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis are forced to change the date of the DPL as per the demand of the clubs who citied they are not interested to participate in the tournament without the availability of national cricketers.
While the trend seemed to have changed during the last one of two editions of DPL as the club officials became more understanding regarding the availability of national cricketers in DPL, according to BCB president Nazmul Hasan the success of the newly introduced DPL T20 without overseas cricketers and national players only guarantees that it is here to stay.
“The best part is that it was quite competitive even without national players or overseas cricketers and people are following it,’’ said Nazmul.
“61 cricketers were debuted in Twenty20 cricket through it that we believe is a great achievement and among them, some of them are quite talented. We feel someday they might even play in the national team,’’ he concluded.
