Dhaka Premier League to begin on September 10

The Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League has been postponed for the sixth time this year, and will now commence on September 10. The tournament was scheduled to begin on September 3, but has been delayed by a week due to a request from the participating teams, the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis (CCDM) said.

"We are in the final stages of preparing the itinerary. The complete schedule will be circulated to the clubs soon," CCDM Chairman Jalal Yunus said. "The teams had requested us to give them some time for coordination and training, and all things considered we felt that September 10 should be an ideal date to start the league."

The league, a 12-team one-day competition under the jurisdiction of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), is Bangladesh's premier 50-overs domestic competition. The "player by choice" transfer program for the tournament was held on August 25, with 161 players recruited by the clubs.

The tournament was initially penned in for March this year, but has run into several roadblocks. First, it was pushed back because Bangladesh were touring Sri Lanka and the clubs wanted the national players present, then a players' strike in late May forced the BCB into declaring that the league would begin in early July. In June, the BCB postponed it again in the aftermath of the news of alleged corruption in the Bangladesh Premier League after BCB president Nazmul Hassan admitted to being unsure about holding the league while the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit's report on the alleged corruption was still pending.

It was deferred for a fourth time in the last week of July, with the Dhaka clubs reluctant to take part in the recruitment programme before Eid-ul-Fitr that was in the second week of August. Before this latest delay, the BCB had announced their domestic schedule for the 2013-14 season on August 5, with the league scheduled for an early September start.