Kolkata: The Indian Premier League has always been a tournament that has attracted a lot of attention worldwide. Today, it stands as one of the most popular T20 tournaments across the globe. As a matter of fact, it’s impact on cricket has been so powerful that countries like Bangladesh came up with their very own T20 tournament based on the IPL and named it the, ‘Bangladesh Premier League.’
It has had a fair amount of success so far as many international heavyweights take part every year to draw the attention of cricket fans globally. This time, they went a step ahead and taking a cue from the recent IPL success of the Mumbai Indians, the BPL side- Khulna Titans have named Sri Lankan great and IPL winning coach Mahela Jayawardene as their head coach for the next two editions of the tournament.
“We are excited to have Mahela Jayawardene join the Titans as head coach for the next two editions of BPL,” confirmed Khulna Titans Managing Director Kazi Inam Ahmed in a statement. He further added, “We were thrilled to see him win the IPL recently as the coach of the Mumbai Indians. I am sure all of us Titans will learn a lot from him and the tournament will be enriched by his presence.”
Jayawardene, who had played for the Dhaka Dynamites last season has been playing T20 cricket across the globe ever since he called it a day on his international career. This would be his second coaching stint after he successfully led the Mumbai Indians to their third IPL title in his maiden year as coach.
“I enjoyed playing in the BPL last year and that has given me a great insight into what will be required to be successful in the 2017 tournament” he said.
The 39-year old Sri Lankan legend would thus replace Australian Stuart Law as the head coach of the Khulna Titans. Law is now the head coach of the West Indies national team.
Again, following the IPL, they too would now have an eight team competition and would announce the inclusion of the eighth team.
Something new finally
But in a first of it’s kind move, the BPL is set to go against the four foreigner rule in a playing XI and instead now would allow five overseas players, said BPL secretary Ismail Haider.
He also justified the reason behind this move as he said, “Since BPL is telecasted in different parts of the world, we have to think about the spectators and they want to see number of quality overseas players in the league.”
The fifth edition of the tournament is set to begin from November 4 this year.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)