Yet another 'unprofessional' start to BPL

The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has garnered a lot of criticism due to various inconsistencies every season. This time was no exception.  An incident caused "extreme confusion" even before the start of the event. On the first day, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) showed what should be called unprofessional regarding the timing of the match.

The BPL started with the match between Sylhet Strikers and Chattogram Challengers at 2 pm. This match was originally scheduled to start at 2:30 pm at the Mirpur Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, which was announced several days ago when the final schedule was announced. 

At 12:30 pm, just hours away from the start, a statement was made on the BCB WhatsApp group suggesting that the match wouldn't start at 2.30 pm. However, the change in the time of the match was not announced in the BCB statement. 

A new schedule image was then provided in the group featuring some matches. The board did not feel the need to inform the reason for the change in the starting time of the match.

The two teams that participated in the opening match were disappointed after this. They had to get into trouble as the match had to be begun half an hour earlier. They had to hurry and finish the preparations.

An official of Sylhet Strikers told The Business Standard on condition of anonymity, "I am very surprised. How can you be so unprofessional? That's extremely disappointing. Is it village cricket that will go to the ground and determine the start time of the match? I think even in village cricket the starting time of the match is fixed much earlier than this. There is really nothing to say."

Not only that, the official players' list provided to journalists in the press box before the start of the match had major errors. The name of the captain Shuvagata Hom was misspelled in the Chattogram Challengers players' list. Avishek Mitra's name was misspelled as well.