Bangladesh Cricket Board on Sunday announced about the continuation of Dhaka Premier League that had been postponed indefinitely since the mid-March of 2020. The 50 over tournament has been decided to make its return in the T20 format.
DPL was postponed due to the pandemic outbreak. It will now resume from May 6 to be held in two windows. Since the conversion of the 50 over format to 20 over format is made, the idea behind this is to fit the matches in two small windows that are available. The decision was made after a meeting held by CCDM with the 12 teams. All teams also agreed to the adjustments including salaries.
CCDM chairman Kazi Inam Ahmed said, “The main challenge for us is the window as you know we have a packed international schedule. So, we will have the tournament in two parts, the first beginning on May 6 for six days and in the second part we will have a window for 15 days. We can add another three days to the first window to start with.”
The governing body of the tournament was urged by players to resume tournament as soon as possible since they relied on money earned in the competition. The the Bangladesh Cricket Board was unable to organize the event post the early lockdown last year. However, they managed to host two other domestic tournaments namely BCB Presidents Cup and the Bangabandhu T20 Cup. Inam also mentions how the T20 format can play a crucial role for the Bangladesh side as it will help them prepare for the ICC T20 World Cup later this year.
All remaing matches will be played at Mirpur in the two grounds available at BKSP (Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan). Given the format is now T20, six matches will be played in the three venues each day from May 6.