The World’s Lowest-Ranked Franchise League: BPL!

The recently concluded Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has been plagued by endless criticism. Each season gives birth to new controversies. These controversies have gone beyond domestic boundaries and reached some of the world’s leading media outlets, a reflection of which was seen in a review by the British magazine The Cricketer. In their ranking, the Bangladesh tournament has been identified as the world’s lowest-ranked franchise cricket league.

The Cricketer evaluated the leagues based on four criteria: entertainment value, quality of cricket, sustainability or credibility, and overall standing. In this review of ten leagues, the BPL finished last (10th) in three of the categories. Only in the category of sustainability or credibility did the UAE’s ILT20 rank 10th, with the BPL placed ninth.

In overall assessment, the IPL, Big Bash, SA T20, and The Hundred are well ahead, while even the Lanka Premier League (LPL) and the United States’ Major League Cricket rank above the BPL. As expected, the world’s biggest franchise cricket league, India’s IPL, occupies the top position, followed by South Africa’s SA T20. While the IPL ranks first in terms of cricketing quality and credibility, SA T20 has been placed first in terms of entertainment.

In its explanation, The Cricketer stated that financial irregularities and corruption are the reasons behind the low ratings of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) and the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). According to them, “the two lowest-ranked tournaments were the LPL and the BPL, both of which are consistently associated with allegations of financial irregularities and corruption.” The explanation further states that both tournaments clearly have the potential to perform well—especially in Bangladesh, a country with a population of more than 170 million—but they suffer from similar problems: frequent changes in franchise ownership, a lack of long-term planning, a high rate of player turnover, and an unstable window in the global cricket calendar.

In overall terms, while the LPL is ranked ninth, the BPL sits at the very bottom of the list, in tenth place.