Franchises should bring more foreign players in BPL, says Elliott

|| CF Correspondent ||

Former New Zealand cricketer, Grant Elliott believes that playing with foreign players in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) can help Bangladeshi players improve their hitting.

The franchise-based tournament BPL features bunch of foreign players each year. According to Elliott, if more foreign players are brought in, Bangladeshi players can learn how to improve their big-hitting skills, which they have been lacking for a long time.

“Yeah, I think the BPL will improve that. I think that you have all those (Big Hitters) players that come over here, the international players they learn from them,” stated Elliott during an interview with Cricfrenzy.

“So the more foreign players that come here, the better the players can actually become. And we've seen that with the likes of the IPL, how that's elevated Indian cricket, because they learn so much from other players around the world, as well as for me to come here and learn from the Bangladesh players, how do they play spin, what do they do? And it's that transfer of knowledge that I think can be a real asset with franchise cricket,”  he said.

Elliot has featured for Chittagong franchise in BPL, he thinks BPL has the same standard as the other franchise leagues around the wold however the playing conditions are different.

“Yeah, with the Chittagong Vikings, it was great. It was awesome. Playing franchise cricket, I think the crowd really gets behind the teams. And then also with players like Chris Gayle was in the team, Tymal Mills, so we had an exciting team. Traveling around with just different internationals is a great experience,” he said.

“I think they're all very similar. I think the thing is with the franchise is more the conditions, it's almost like the same players just rotate round to all the different franchise teams. And it's the culture, it's the support that you get from the players. But I think the spectacle is all the same. The standards are quite similar around the world," 

"The conditions here are different, though. Turning wickets, right hand, left hand combinations, left arm spin. I think the makeup of the team is always going to be a little bit different in the BPL," he added.