Bangladesh Premier League

Following the success of franchise Twenty20 cricket leagues such as the Indian Premier League around the world, the Bangladesh Cricket Board announced a plan to replace the National Cricket League with a franchise based league. On 18 January 2012 the board entered a 6-year, 350-crore deal with Game on Sports Group to establish a franchise tournament. The deal gave the group exclusive management rights to the tournament. The league was founded with six franchises from the largest cities of Bangladesh. During the franchise auction 13 companies took part in the bidding process, with six winning the rights of each clubs.

The first edition of the league officially kicked off on 9 February 2012, excluding a lavish opening ceremony at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.[3] The initial player auction was held on 18 and 19 January 2012 and the first match in the tournament staged on 9 February 2012 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium between Sylhet Royals and Barisal Burners. The first final game was between Dhaka Gladiators and Barisal Burners, with Dhaka Gladiators emerging as champions after winning by eight wickets. All matches in the first edition of the league were held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium and Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in the country's second-largest city Chittagong.

Rangpur Riders were added as a seventh team for the second season. Dhaka Gladiators again emerged as champions beating Chittagong Kings in the final by 43 runs. Once again Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka hosted the final and most of the matches while the MA Aziz Stadium replaced the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong due to higher capacity and Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna (third-largest city) was added as the third venue.

Following accusations of match fixing during the 2012–13 season, the owners of all six original franchises were suspended in 2013 due to constant violations of the league regulations and constant delays in players’ salary handover. The owners of Dhaka Gladiators were handed a lifetime suspension by the governing committee.[4] A number of players and administrators were handed bans for match fixing, including the former captain of Bangladesh, Mohammad Ashraful.

Following the match fixing scandal, the league was not played in the year 2014. It returned in the 2015 with six new franchises and it was held in the winter season unlike Spring previously. Comilla Victorians won the competition, beating Barisal Bulls by three wickets. In advance of the 2016–17 edition of the league one franchise, the Sylhet Super Stars, was suspended following breaches of disciplinary regulations[5] and two new franchises, Khulna Titans and Rajshahi Kings, were introduced, bringing the number of teams in the competition back to seven.

In the 2016 edition, Dhaka Dynamites won the tournament for the third time by defeating Rajshahi Kings in the final.

In the 2017–18 edition of the league, the Sylhet franchise returned as the Sylhet Sixers with new ownership and management. As a result, the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium was also listed as a third venue. Barisal Bulls franchise was suspended due to financial mishaps.

Challengers

Warriors

Platoon

Tigers

Royals

Rangers

Thunder

Locations of Bangladesh Premier League teams

At a corporate level, the Bangladesh Premier League considers itself an association made up of and financed by its member teams. All income generated through television rights, licensing agreements, sponsorship, ticket sales and other means is earned and shared between the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the participating franchises. The league is controlled by a Governing Council (GC). As the parent organisation, the Bangladesh Cricket Board appoints the GC's members.

As of the 2018–19 season, the league consists of seven franchises. Each team players every other team twice in the round-robin stage of the competition with the teams with the top 4 advancing to a series of play-off matches. These lead to a championship match in which the league champion is decided.

Barisal and Mymensingh are the only divisions in the country to not have any representative franchise in the league.

For the first season of the tournament, Bangladeshi conglomerate Destiny Group was the main sponsor of the tournament, negotiating a one-year sponsorship package for 75 million taka (US$1.0 million). Prime Bank Limited was awarded with the sponsorship deal for the second season for 100 million taka (US$1.5 million). BRB Cables Limited held the sponsorship rights for third season in 2015 with 150 million taka (US$2.0 million). Abul Khair Steel (AKS), a sister concern group of Abul Khair Industries Limited became the title sponsor of the fourth and fifth edition.

• List of Bangladesh Premier League captains
• List of Bangladesh Premier League records and statistics
• Bangladesh Cricket Board