Rangpur can bid for a team of 3rd edition BPL

 Flora Ltd, which had bought the Rangpur franchise in December 2012, now can join with the 11 new enterprises that submitted their Expression of Interest (EOI) to BCB on August 17 for the 3rd edition Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) after clearing their dues of BPL 2013.
“The Rangpur franchise of the 2013 BPL cleared their dues and can now bid for a team in this year’s tournament,” said Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan in a press briefing at Mirpur on Saturday.
“So now we are taking 12 enterprises under consideration for new franchise ownership. We will give them a letter on August 30 or September 1 to deposit to us Tk 1 crore as pay order and Tk 4.5 crore as bank guarantee,” he said.
“We are taking bank guarantee to avoid risk involved on players’ payment. There won’t be any more risk if we take the Tk 5.5 crore, both with local and foreign players. There won’t be problem similar to the last two editions,” added the BCB president.
There have been claims of players not getting their earnings on time in previous editions of the BPL and the BCB feels this arrangement keeps all parties well-looked after.
Hassan hinted that there might be eight teams in the BPL in 2015. He also added that paying the money would not guarantee a franchise. The new owners must show they are dedicated to the sport and are not just looking at the BPL as “a business venture”.
“If the older ones pay us, the list will be bigger than the 12 existing applicants. This time we will not consider any company who are eyeing a business venture at the BPL,” Hasan added.
“We will keep those companies that have strong financial background, are interested in sports, have spent money in different tournaments in the past and are interested in financing for the sake of cricket. We might increase the number of teams if we see some sound investors are coming forward.”
Five companies are still to pay Tk 36.81 crore. The Sylhet franchise have almost Tk 8 crore, Barisal Tk 6.5 crore, Khulna around Tk 8.19 crore, Rajshahi Tk 6.09 crore and Chittagong Tk 7.45 crore, the BCB boss informed.
“We will wait till August 27 for the old franchises to pay their past dues,” Hassan said. “Right now, I don’t want to hear the names of those old franchises who didn’t pay us previous dues. I don’t know if it would be ethical to reconsider old franchises, but past dues will go against them,” he cautioned.