Bangladesh Premier League suspended this year

The Bangladesh Premier League will not be held this year while the country’s main T20 cricket competition undergoes an overhaul, Bangladesh Cricket Board president Tamim Iqbal said Thursday.

Tamim said some franchises had breached rules and regulations. He said the board was also dealing with unpaid dues and bank guarantee issues, and that the BCB had suffered losses of around $3.3 million from the BPL over the past two years.

He said the board wanted to host the BPL again but would not rush the process. The BCB has started communicating with existing franchises and plans to complete the franchise process by April or May next year, with time to seek alternatives if a team defaults.

Tamim also said the board was open to foreign franchises. He was speaking at the launch of the Game Development Trophy, a new tournament featuring Bangladesh’s under-17, under-19 and under-23 teams.