Basundhara Group's Rangpur make comeback as BPL announces seven franchises for 2023-2025 editions

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has officially announced that the Basundhara Group's Rangpur, who are also the former Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) champions will be making their comeback for the next three editions of the Bangladesh franchise tournament from 2023 to 2025. 

With the comeback of Rangpur, the BCB has announced that seven teams will be participating in the next three editions. Even though Basundara is finally back and in the scheme of things it is to be noted that neither Beximco Limited nor Gemcon Group have expressed their interest to take part in the tournament. These teams had featured during the first phase of the Bangladesh Premier League on a regular basis.

Rangpur returns to the Bangladesh Premier League

The BCB had earlier passed the tender for the franchise rights for the next three editions 2023-2025 and nine parties had shown their Expression of Interests (EOI) to acquire the rights for becoming one of the seven frachises. 

More importantly, the Bangladesh Cricket Board have made advance plans by coming out with dates for the next three editions of the BPL.

The 2023 edition will be played between January 5 to February 16, the 2024 season between January 6 to February 17 while the 2025 season will be contested from January 1 to February 11.

"After detailed evaluation and assessment of the EOI documents submitted by prospective owners, the BPL (Bangladesh Premier League) T20 Governing Council has invited the following parties to complete the process of securing Franchise Ownership Rights for the next three (9th, 10th & 11th) editions of the tournament," BPL governing council said in a statement.

According to reports in Cricbuzz, "the player draft will be held on either October 7 or 8 while the selected business houses have been asked to deposit BDT 10 Crores to get the franchise rights for the first year of the tournament."

"The BCB will get BDT 1.5 Crore as franchise fees while the rest of the amount will be kept for players payments, accommodation and other expenses for the franchises."

Here's the list of the BPL franchises:

BPL Franchises: Fortune Barishal Sports Ltd (Barishal), Mindtree Limited (Khulna), Progoti Green Auto Rice Mills Ltd (Dhaka), Future Sports Bangladesh Limited (Sylhet), Bashundhara Group's Toggi Sports Limited (Rangpur), Delta Sports Ltd (Chattogram) Comilla Legends Limited (Comilla).