Malan backs BPL's standard despite all criticism

|| CF DESK ||

Despite all the critique and indictments against Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), England batter Dawid Malan backed the arrangements of the tournament and stated BPL has always maintained ‘standard’.

Once BPL was compared to the highest ranked franchise tournament Indian Premier League (IPL) but the quailty of this league is gradually decreasing.

Malan believes that it became challenging for BCB and BPL franchise owners to attract quality players due to the rise of many franchise leagues around the world. 

“I think the standard is good, the tournament is good and I think this is always been a stepping-stone for younger English players but especially there is now so many other tournaments, so if BPL can attract those players with the standard of cricket. I guess a lot of players will come here. I remember, early days playing against Andrew Russell, Shahid Afridi, Sunil Narine, Pollard [Kieron] in the same team was phenomenal, like an IPL team,” said Malan after the practice session in Mirpur.

“The standard of overseas and quality players were always been here. It’s just that, there are some other leagues, it’s only the challenge for BCB and owners to bring the high-quality players here instead of other leagues,” he said.

Malan walked in Bangladesh's domestic cricket has been long before stepping foot in international cricket. In 2013, he came here to play for Prime Doleshwar in the Dhaka Premier League. He was successful in his first campaign against such opposing wickets and conditions.

Perhaps keeping in mind the success of the Dhaka Premier League, Barisal Bulls took Malan into the team in 2016-17 BPL.

Six months after playing this BPL, he made his debut in England's jersey. After getting a chance in the national team, he came to play BPL two more times. In the 2018-19 season, he played for Khulna Titans and in the 2019-20 BPL he was a player of Comilla Warriors.

The left-handed batter showed gratitude and said BPL gave him the scope to learn and develop his cricket and also mentioned that he never want to miss any opportunity to play cricket in Bangladesh.

“I’ve always enjoyed  BPL. It is one of my first tournaments I’ve played in. It gave me a stepping stone, it helped me learned my cricket, not only in BPL but Dhaka Premier League as well. Both these tournaments help me to develop my game. So any opportunity to come over Bangladesh I take that full opportunity,” 

He further said that Bangladesh’s wicket aided the batters to take up challenges and prepare themselves to play at any wicket and conditions.

“There is always different challenges in different countries. You play in Chattogram, some of the best wickets you have ever played, you play in Mirpur you never know what you are going to get. So you have to learn to adapt,” 

“The standard and the quality of overseas players that usually play here and quality of local players are also very good standard, especially when you put the condition in. You learn a lot of skills and how you go in a different way here than you do in the other tournaments,” he added.