The BPL 2025 - A tournament where no one wins

The Chattogram phase of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) opened up a can of worms that may see a point of no return.

There were already rumblings of players not getting paid when the tournament moved into the Sylhet phase and that came full tilt when Durbar Rajshahi decided to boycott a training session in Chattogram.

While after much furore they got paid 25% that was promised, there are players from other franchises that didn't get paid.
One player, from the Durbar Rajshahi franchise, Lahiru Samarakoon even formally complained to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) over not getting paid.

Players from Chittagong Kings have been speaking to some members of the media, citing anonymity over not getting paid.
It went to the point where the owner of Chittagong Kings, Sameer Chowdhury even admitted to the media that he didn't pay Parvez Hossain Emon for personal reasons.

Payment aside, there have been allegations of suspicious wides being given in matches, sometimes in line with betting odds.
Renowned journalist Jarrod Kimber even made a video on the wides of the BPL and how they matched with some peculiar betting odds.

What's going on in reality is anyone's guess but players have kept tight-lipped during press conferences so far.
However, with three other T20 franchise leagues (SA20, ILT20 and BBL) taking place at the same time, the pool of foreign players have decreased. 

While players feel it's important to keep the quota of four foreign players, unlike what the BBL does with two, Mehidy Hasan Miraz spoke about moving the tournament to a different time. 

"It would be nice if the BCB can find a better timing for the BPL where fewer franchise leagues are taking place," Miraz, who is captaining Khulna Tigers, said at the post-match press conference on Thursday.

With all these issues, who really wins?

Asking Thisara Perera on the matter of tournament quality, he smiled and just spoke about it giving more players an option to pick and play in the franchise tournaments and as far as his participation in the BPL was concerned, it was a matter of "first come, first serve".

It is well known that the BCB, one of the richest boards in world cricket has no shortage of cash, but how is the franchise tournament they're organising having teams struggling to pay the players?

Again, who really wins?

There are rumblings among those in the media and close to the BCB, that they might have to pay the players if the franchises fail to pay them.

Then there are suggestions that the BCB did not want to host the tournament so soon, after the July uprising among the cricketing fraternity.

And let's not forget that the BPL still doesn't have revenue sharing for the franchises yet and owners have often complained about the difficulties in making a profit here.  

The only positive that can perhaps be taken from the tournament so far is that fans came to the grounds despite the lack of star power and all the controversies surrounding the tournament.
But even here, there were often reports of fans clashing outside the stadiums, even in Chattogram, over a lack of tickets at times.

So, who really won?

There was a moment in the press conference on Thursday where Ryan Burl asked: "So no more cricketing questions?"
In reality, for many of the journalists, cricket became the least of concerns with so many other things like player payments being delayed or not given at all, fan clashes, and a stench of spot-fixing all taking precedence. 

The tournament is set to finish off in the next 13 days in Dhaka but after everything it has already been through, it's clear that nobody won.