Bangladesh Premier League 2022 to take place behind closed doors

The 2022 edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is set to take place behind closed doors, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) informed on Saturday, January 15. The tournament is scheduled to begin on Friday, January 21 and the BCB took the call keeping in mind the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has kept most countries on its toes. The Bangladesh board recently allowed crowds in Dhaka and Chattogram when the Tigers locked horns with Pakistan in a bilateral Test and T20I series. Prior to that, the BCB had banned the entry of fans at the venue.

Ismail Haider Mallick, the governing council secretary of the BPL, revealed that fans won’t be there at the venues during the BPL as per directives from the government.

Bangladesh board takes a tough call

“There will be no fans allowed inside the stadium during the upcoming BPL. This is the directives given by the government and we are following it,” Mallick was quoted as saying on Cricbuzz.

The BPL also won’t have the Decision Review System (DRS) technology since the board couldn’t bring in technicians from abroad due to the pandemic. A foreign umpire and a local umpire will officiate during the T20 championship.

“We cannot use the DRS in BPL due to the Covid situation. Now they (technicians) can’t fly. Their two teams are now in two countries, they will not be able to come to Bangladesh in this situation from there. Hawk-Eye Company is the sole provider of DRS in the world. No one wants to come because of Omicron,” he stated.

“There is nothing to discuss with the franchises about DRS. We did not get DRS and we will let them know. It’s true that the tournament might lose some of its appeal without DRS but there is nothing to do. We wanted full capacity of crowds in BPL. We also got permission from the government but everything changed because of Omicron,” Mallick added.

The opening game of the BPL 2022 will take place between Chattogram Challengers and Fortune Barishal. On the same day, Dhaka Platoon and Khulna Tigers will also lock horns. The previous edition of the league was scrapped and instead, the inaugural Bangabandhu T20 Cup took place.