Bangladesh Premier League is also abbreviated as BPL. BPL is a franchise based first class domestic cricket tournament which been held in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Premier League is modeled on Indian Premier League and has been announced in the year 2011 while the first tournament of this league has been played in the year 2012. BPL is tournament that is based on Twenty20 format which is the shortest version of international cricket nowadays. The tournament is been administrated by Bangladesh Cricket Board and is headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The tournaments possess a double round-robin and knock out format. Initially the tournament was started with six franchise teams but because of the huge success of the tournament one additional team has been included after the commencement of first season of the tournament. Rangur Riders is the team that has been added to the franchise list. The second season of the tournament is about to begin from January 18, 2013 onwards and will last till February 19, 2013. The tournament has opted round-robin and playoffs format for this particular version of the tournament.
The Bangladesh Premier League for 2013 is also been as BPL 2013 and in this there are about 46 matches scheduled among 7 franchise teams. But there is a bad news for Bangladesh Cricket Board and the cricket fans that Pakistan Cricket Board has refused to allow any of the Pakistani players, who were sold to play in Bangladesh Premier League,total 27 to play in the second season of the tournament i.e. BPL 2013. This is done because the Bangladesh Cricket Board has canceled pre scheduled tour of Bangladeshi cricket team to Pakistan, over safety reasons. In BPL 2013 most of the matches will be held Sher-e-Bangla Cricket Stadium in Dhaka while Zohur Ahmed Chowdhery Stadium will host the matches held in Chittagong in place of MA Aziz Stadium. The MA Aziz Stadium has been the venue for all the matches held in Chittagong in the first season but due to reconstruction in order to increase the capacity of the stadium it would not be able to host any match in Bangladesh Premier League 2013.
Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna will host a cricket match for the first time in this season of Bangladesh Premier League. In the second season of BPL there a certain major changes been made in the salaries of the players and there will various restrictions regarding their payments. However, Bangladeshi all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has been the most expensive local player with the highest price of $365,000 while former Pakistani skipper Shahid Afridi was sold as the most expensive player of Bangladesh Premier League with $280,000 along with his own team mate Imran Nazir as the second expensive player going for $275,000. The players would divided in three categories according to which they would be provided their salary, the categories are:- Golden, Golden(foreign); A(local), B(local), C(local); A(foreign), B(foreign), C(foreign). The division and auction of the players was held in December 2012.