The Bangladesh allrounder criticised a chaotic build-up, which saw the draft only held in late November, and what he described as "a huge failure in terms of marketing"
Shakib Al Hasan has offered a scathing assessment of the Bangladesh Premier League ahead of the start of its ninth edition.
The Bangladesh allrounder criticised a chaotic build-up, which saw the draft only held in late November – little over a month before the first game, meaning that many of the franchise circuit's leading overseas players had already been snapped up by the ILT20 and SA20, both of which will take place for the first time in January.
Shakib also suggested that team jerseys are not ready, summarising the state of play as "a messy situation".
He went as far as to say that the Dhaka Premier League, Bangladesh's domestic one-day tournament, is "more organised".
"They can arrange the team ahead of time," he was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. "They know what their team is going to be. Every DPL team knows who is playing where for the next edition.
"We don't really know what's going in the BPL. It only starts when the BPL matches start."
Shakib Al Hasan in action for Fortune Barishal in 2022 (Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images)
The competition is set to begin on January 6 in Dhaka, with a doubleheader: Chattogram Challengers will face Sylhet Strikers before Comilla Victorians take on Rangpur Riders in the evening.
He was also critical of the lack of impact that the tournament has overseas despite the BPL being one of the most established, longstanding T20 competitions in the world.
"They show a list of countries where the BPL is telecast, but nobody really watches the tournament," he added. "When an uncapped player does well in PSL or CPL, they get a national call-up. It doesn't happen when they play in the BPL. It is quite disappointing that we have remained at this stage.
"There's no market because we never created the market. If we could have added value to this market, it would have been really big. Cricket is played everywhere in this country, even in remote villages.
"It is a very popular sport in a country of 160 to 180million, so I don't believe there can't be a market for cricket here. It is a huge failure in terms of marketing."
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