The new season of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) started from 26 December. This T20 league of Bangladesh has entered its 12th season but dramas like village tournaments are still being seen.

On not receiving salary last season foreign players had come out in revolt, before the start of this season the Chattogram Royals franchise withdrew due to lack of funds. The franchise owner told the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) that sponsors were not found due to media reports.

The BCB was forced to take control of the franchise following the withdrawal of Triangle Services Limited, the company that owns the Chattogram Royals. This controversy had not even subsided when Khalid Mahmood, the head coach of the Noakhali Express franchise, took to the streets due to lack of facilities in training. Khalid Mehmood even said that I will not work in BPL under these circumstances.

‘Never seen anything like this in BPL’

Khalid Mahmood has captained Bangladesh in Test and One Day Internationals. Now he is taking over the responsibility of head coach of Noakhali Express, one of the new franchises of BPL. The Noakhali Express team went to Sylhet International Stadium for training on Thursday (24 December) before playing its first match in BPL but there was a severe lack of facilities there. There were not enough balls even for practice, due to which Khalid Mehmood got angry.

He and the team’s assistant coach Talha Zubair left the stadium angrily and sat in an auto rickshaw. Khalid Mahmood told the media while sitting in an auto rickshaw, ‘I have never seen anything like this in BPL before.’ Later he also said that he will not work with the Noakhali franchise.

players remained in the stadium

While Khalid Mahmood and Talha Zubair were creating ruckus on the streets, the players of the Noakhali franchise remained at the Sylhet Stadium and continued training. Noakhali’s team includes foreign players like Johnson Charles of West Indies, Kusal Mendis of Sri Lanka and Mohammad Nabi of Afghanistan. Due to lack of basic things like availability of practice balls in front of such big foreign players, question marks have been raised on Bangladesh cricket and its T20 league.

Foreign players did not come to play due to lack of money

In the last season of BPL, the foreign players of Darbar Rajshahi had boycotted the match due to non-payment of money. Darbar Rajshahi came to play only with local players on 26 January 2025. There is a rule in BPL that every team will include at least 2 foreign players in its playing XI, but Darbar Rajshahi did not have foreign players available for selection. Here the match was going on and there the foreign players were in the hotel.