BPL must improve standards to draw foreign cricketers: Lisa Sthalekar

Lisa Sthalekar, former Australian women's cricketer and current president of the World Cricketers' Association (WCA), said on Sunday that the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) needs to improve its overall standards to attract foreign cricketers.

The WCA released an assessment based on metrics developed with players, agents and players' associations. The metrics cover key benchmarks in cricket and other sports, with major domestic leagues defined as those featuring five or more current Full Member international cricketers as overseas players.

According to the assessment of 10 T20 tournaments, The Hundred leads with 75.2 points, while the BPL is at the bottom with 22.6 points. The IPL is third with 62.6 points, behind SA20 with 68 points.

Sthalekar urged the Cricket Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB) to work with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to address the tournament's issues, including non-payment and fixing concerns, to encourage foreign participation.

"It's to help players, administrators and agents understand what the issues have been and what the successful aspects of each T20 league are," Sthalekar told reporters in Mirpur.

"Obviously, if you look at the BPL, its traffic light doesn't have a lot of green. Speaking to Mithun, I said this is an opportunity for them to work with the BCB to ensure that overseas players want to come here and play, and that they can move into the amber and green categories."

She added that payment disputes must be addressed for the BPL to improve its ranking, and emphasised CWAB's role in this.

"For professional cricketers, it's their job. If they've played cricket and done their job, they should be paid. If the system has put contracts in place, they should be honoured."

Sthalekar expressed confidence in the current CWAB administration's ability to improve over time.

"It's been wonderful to get an understanding of what the new administration has been doing. These are new administrators learning about a players' association and how they can be the voice of professional cricketers in Bangladesh."