BPL 2023 review - The good, the bad and the ugly

Comilla Victorians clinched the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) title for a record fourth time, beating Sylhet Strikers in an entertaining final in Mirpur on Thursday. This was Imrul Kayes' third title as skipper. The side overcame a poor start and won 11 matches - a BPL record - in a row to seal the deal. 

The tournament continued to be a low-scoring one, compared to the other franchise leagues around the world. The run rate (7.73) this year was even lower than that of the 2022 season (8.24). This year, BPL was slightly less colourful because of the lack of big names and so the focus was more on local players. 

The Business Standard (TBS) looks at the breakout stars, the underperforming powerhouses, the positives and the negatives of the country's franchise-based T20 tournament that has just come to an end.

The Good

The BPL was a tournament for the bowlers, more precisely the Bangladeshi fast bowlers. Bangladesh used to be a country producing loads of finger spinners but the meteoric rise of fast bowlers in the country is inspiring. A major takeaway from this year's BPL is a fast bowler with not much international experience - Hasan Mahmud - becoming the highest wicket-taker. 

Death bowling in white-ball cricket has always been an issue for Bangladeshi bowlers but Mahmud's performance at this very phase was very encouraging. He was arguably the best death bowler of the tournament, going for only 7.8 per over in overs 17-20. Only Mohammad Amir had a better economy rate at the death.

One of the most positive signs was local fast bowlers leading the bowling attacks of the teams. Taskin Ahmed was Dhaka Dominators' spearhead before getting ruled out. The right-arm fast bowler was the most economical (6.02) fast bowler of the tournament. Sylhet Strikers' Rejaur Rahman Raja, who earned a Test call-up last year, was impressive in the early part of the tournament and was applauded by Mashrafe Mortaza. 

Comilla Victorians' Mukidul Islam was the tournament's only bowler to pick up a five-wicket haul. Some of the bowlers cranked up the speed gun. Chattogram Challengers' Mrittunjoy Chowdhury and Khulna Tigers' Nahid Rana bowled with pace, often without results though. 

Rony Talukdar, Najmul Hossain Shanto and Towhid Hridoy had breakthrough seasons with the bat. Hridoy upped his power game big time and a strike rate of 140.4 suggests his marked improvement in this format. Shanto became the first Bangladeshi batter to cross 500 runs in a BPL season although the strike rate should have been higher.

Nasir Hossain had a decent all-round tournament as well. At different stages of the tournament, he led both the run and wicket charts. Comilla spinner Tanvir Islam (joint highest wicket-taker) had another magnificent season. 

The BCB paid tribute to the language martyrs on 10 February ahead of International Mother Language Day. The decision seemed to be a last-minute one but the promotion of national culture - something that's widely done at the other franchise leagues - was well-received. 

The Bad

The BPL has gradually become a low-profile tournament. This time it coincided with two first-timers - the ILT20 and the SA20 - but both overtook the BPL in terms of quality and viewership. The tournaments featured more prominent overseas stars, attracting more spectators worldwide. 

Coming back to on-field cricket. The two aspects that have always plagued Bangladesh in T20 cricket are batting in the powerplay and also at the death. With Tamim Iqbal retiring from T20Is, Bangladesh now need a settled opening batter to partner Litton Das. But unfortunately, the search is still on even after the end of another BPL. 

Almost none of the regular top-order batters could score freely inside the powerplay. The powerplay numbers of the batters leading the chart are not impressive. Shanto's tournament strike rate of 116.7 is below-par and his strike rate inside the first six overs falls even lower - 109.6. 

The powerplay strike rates of Rony (124) and Hridoy (111.4) are not satisfactory either. The highest strike rate by a local batter in the powerplay with at least 100 runs is 153 by Mehidy Hasan Miraz but four innings is not a big enough sample size. 

Nurul Hasan and Mosaddek Hossain are the centrally contracted players who generally bat lower down the order for Bangladesh in T20Is. But both of them had a really poor tournament. 

Captain of Rangpur Riders, Nurul scored only 198 runs in 10 innings batting slightly higher than he normally does. Mosaddek's performance was even worse as his strike rate didn't even touch 100.

Comilla Victorians coach Mohammad Salahuddin blasted the local players for a "lack of common sense". A few years ago, Herschelle Gibbs insulted Bangladeshi players for not understanding his instructions. Years later, the situation remains the same.

The Ugly

In an interview with The Business Standard a few days ago, Comilla Victorians director Aveir Alam said that franchises not being able to stick around for long is a massive problem. Comilla are probably the only side whose ownership hasn't changed hands over the years. 

The names of the teams keep on changing. The Dhaka-based franchise was called Minister Dhaka last year. This year they participated with the name "Dhaka Dominators". The team had probably the weakest squad in the tournament and on top of that, the players reportedly received their payments much later than expected. New franchise Sylhet Strikers reported a match-fixing approach quite early in the tournament. 

As usual, there was no DRS in the early part of the tournament. This time the equipment was there but there was no technician. The BCB cited the occurrence of ILT20 and SA20 as the reason behind the unavailability of DRS. In the absence of it, the BCB employed ADRS - a system that drew a lot of criticism last year - much to the dissent of a lot of players. 

Netherlands' Paul van Meekeren was critical of the use of ADRS after an incident took place involving Soumya Sarkar and Khulna Tigers. The umpiring was once again below average. A lot of players, at different stages of the tournament, argued with umpires regarding on-field decisions. 

Shakib Al Hasan got involved with heated altercations with umpires multiple times and in one of the matches, he stormed into the ground and had a go at the umpires. Comilla coach Salahuddin was fined for speaking out against umpiring decisions. 

The lack of professionalism was evident from the franchises as well. Khulna Tigers announced on their official page that Pakistan's Naseem Shah would play for them. But the fast bowler turned up for Comilla Victorians in the tournament with Khulna informing that they released him due to "technical reasons". 

Some of Barishal captain Shakib's tactical decisions in the eliminator against Rangpur went against them and he was directly blamed for the defeat in a Facebook post uploaded from the team's official page, only to be deleted later.

These incidents go viral on social media quickly, making BPL a laughingstock, especially in the neighbouring countries. 

Shakib criticised the non-marketing of the BPL just before the tournament began and Mashrafe said the all-rounder was "spot on". The colourlessness and lack of quality have made the tournament - once dubbed as "the second best league in the world" by the BCB president - probably the least sought one.