BPL franchises eye T20 Global League player pool

A few Bangladesh Premier League T20 franchises are considering reviewing their squads for the 2017 tournament and are looking to sign players freed up by the postponement of South Africa’s T20 Global League. The franchises which have shown most interest in doing so are looking to replace those Pakistan players who will miss the first two weeks of the BPL. The Pakistan Cricket Board had last month made it mandatory for its centrally contracted players to participate in the domestic National T20 Cup.

Comilla Victorians have Rumman Raees, Faheem Ashraf, Shoaib Malik, Hasan Ali and Fakhar Zaman on their roster, while Khulna Titans had signed on Shadab Khan, Junaid Khan and Sarfraz Ahmed. Fast bowler Mohammad Amir is part of the Dhaka Dynamites squad, while Usman Khan and Babar Azam have been signed up by Sylhet Sixers.

ESPNcricinfo has learned that Comilla and Khulna Titans are already looking for replacements from the players available in the T20 Global League pool. The inaugural edition of the South Africa league, which was scheduled to begin on November 3 and would have clashed with the BPL, was postponed to November 2018 by Cricket South Africa. Other BPL teams, however, have been restricted by the budget that they have already spent on their current squad before and during the BPL draft.

Players from the T20 Global League who could be of interest to BPL owners include marquee names like AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis and JP Duminy. Franchises would look at players like Jason Roy, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Smith, David Miller, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo and Alex Hales.

Dhaka’s CEO Obeid Nizam said despite a nearly complete squad, the franchise are keen on signing more big names. Dhaka are considered to have one of the strongest teams on paper, having already signed up Evin Lewis, Sunil Narine, Shane Watson and Shahid Afridi.

“I have been told to look to sign some big names,” Obeid said. “We already have several top players in our side but there are certain cricketers we would like to have in the squad.”

An official from another franchise, however, said that while their existing squad is set they will scout for replacements, if required. At the moment, Chittagong Vikings have the fewest foreign players and it’s likely the franchise will try and enlist more to strengthen their squad.