Five corporates pick up teams for Bangabandhu T20 Cup

The players' draft for the Bangabandhu T20 Cup, a five-team domestic competition, will be held in Dhaka on November 12, while the tournament scheduled be begin in the third week of November. The competition will feature no overseas players.

Fortune Barishal, Beximco Dhaka, Minister Group Rajshahi, Gemcon Khulna and Gazi Group Chattogram are the five teams competing, with each of these companies buying teams from the BCB for a reported BDT Two crore (US $235,000 approx) each.

Among them, Beximco and Gemcon owned the now-erstwhile BPL franchises Dhaka Dynamites and Khulna Titans respectively, while Gazi Group has teams in the Dhaka league system.

The BCB will use the money earned as franchise fee to pay the players. The BCB have set four grades of payments. Those in Grade A (Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah and Mustafizur Rahman) will get BDT 15 lakh (US $18,000 approx) each. In Grade B, twenty cricketers are marked for BDT 10 (US $11,800 approx). Twenty five players in Grade C will earn BDT 6 lakh (US $7,100 approx) while those in Grade D, comprising players from the High Performance setup will earn BDT 4 lakh (US $4,800 approx).

Around 113 players, including Shakib, who haven't been a part of BCB's camps in recent months, will take part in a fitness test on November 9 and 10 to determine whether they make it to the draft. Mashrafe Mortaza will miss the tournament due to a hamstring injury, according to Akram Khan, BCB's chairman of cricket operations.

Each squad will comprise 15 players, two coaches, one trainer, one physio and a manager, who will be included in the bio-bubble. Bangladesh's overseas coaching staff of Russell Domingo (head coach), Daniel Vettori (spin bowling coach), Ottis Gibson (fast bowling coach) and Ryan Cook (fielding coach), will take charge of the teams, with the BCB organising a bubble at the same hotel in Dhaka.

The BCB had last month conducted the President's Cup one-day competition, where in similar arrangements with regards to a bio bubble were made.

The Bangabandhu Cup is likely to take up four weeks in the cricket season, after which it is likely that the West Indies will tour Bangladesh in January. The BCB is also pushing for the resumption of the 2019-20 Dhaka Premier League, which was put on hold due to the pandemic.