BPL 2022: Dhaka sign Tamim Iqbal, Mashrafe Mortaza from players' draft

Tamim Iqbal and Mashrafe Bin Mortaza have been roped in by Dhaka, a franchise owned by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), for the eighth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). According to the rules of the BPL Governing Council, each franchise was allowed to pick one local player and three foreign players through direct signing.

Dhaka had thus already picked up Bangladesh T20 skipper Mahmudullah. Rupa Fabrics Ltd & Marn Steel Ltd (Consortium) were the initial bidder for Dhaka. However, as they failed to pay the bank guarantee of BDT Five Crore, the board decided to change them in the eleventh hour.

“We still have some offers in our hand for the Dhaka franchise after we decided not to continue with the initial bidder as they failed to fulfill all our requirements on time. Now we are just trying to figure out the financial strength of the interested parties as we had some bad experiences in the past regarding payment of franchises and don’t want to make a similar mistake,” BPL governing council member secretary Ismail Haider had told Cricbuzz.

Habibul Bashar who is the BCB selector alongside Mahmudullah were bidding for Dhaka in the draft. The latter thus included Tamim and Mortaza within the first three calls. Owing to this, the senior trio will feature in the same team for the first time in BPL history. The T20I skipper opened up about the same and pinned his hopes on the team to do well in the tournament.

We have the chance to do well in BPL: Mahmudullah

“I always had a belief we would play again together. I am happy to see that we will play together again. Tamim is also with us and we have a lot of experienced players on our team. So I hope if we can execute it in the field, we have the chance to do well in BPL,” he said.

Tamil Iqbal also expressed his feelings on playing alongside Mortaza and Mahmudullah, he further added that their job is to just support their skipper.

“Really it is fantastic to see all three in one team and that’s why our team has been strong. And it will be a lot of fun in the dressing room if the three of us are together. I don’t want to say anything about captaincy because Riyad (Mahmudullah) Vai is still holding T20 team captaincy and he deserves the leadership role. Our job is to support him,” Tamim said.