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The Bangladesh Cricket Board is planning to organise women’s Bangladesh Premier League right after the end of the ongoing men’s edition, confirmed board director and the member secretary of BPL Nazmul Abedin Fahim. 

According to Fahim, who was talking to the reporters in Chattogram on Friday, three teams will participate in a one-off Women’s BPL. 

‘The plan is to conduct it with three teams,’ said Fahim. ‘And that will be held soon after [Men’s] BPL ends. The duration will be eight to nine days. We’ve already talked about it with some franchises, and they’re eager to participate.’ 

Three teams will play in two rounds, whereas each round will have two matches. Then the top two teams from the group stage will qualify for the final. 

Fahim also stated that every team will have the opportunity to field one foreign player in the eleven. He also said, ‘Initially,

we decided that every team will have 15 local players, whereas the foreign quota is open.’

The Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium will host all the matches. As per Fahim, this will be ‘beneficial for the exposure of this tournament.’

The board director also explained why they’ve decided to limit the tournament to three teams. 

‘To organise a quality tournament, you need some quality players. This could not be possible if you’ve got more than three teams. We thought about having four teams, but this was an obstacle,’ he said.

‘We didn’t just want to organise a tournament from where you’d get the money. We thought about how to improve the game. We thought that the three-team tournament would be competitive,’ he added. 

Fahim also hoped that the Women’s BPL would take the country’s women’s cricket a step ahead. 

‘We want to see how it affects women’s cricket,’ said Fahim. ‘We hope that it will carry women’s cricket forward.’ 

He also assured that the Women’s BPL will not face the problems the Men’s edition is having, like unpaid salaries. 

‘It goes without saying,’ said the veteran cricket coach and analyst.

 ‘We’ll try to work on the technical and financial issues carefully,’ said Fahim.

‘There were many questions regarding this BPL about whether we would have organised it. Many franchises left after the revolution. We took a risk. There’s no doubt that there are some sectors where we couldn’t do it properly. But I hope that this will be sorted out,’ he further added.