A Bangladesh Cricket Board official on Tuesday said that they have decided to introduce a new T20 tournament to their domestic calendar year, scheduled to take place later this year.

The tournament will be held just after the end of the National Cricket League, the country’s one of two first-class domestic tournaments which is scheduled to start from 15 October, and the participating eight teams from the NCL will feature in the newly-introduced domestic T20 tournament.

Since 2012, the BCB has been organising Bangladesh Premier League, the only annual franchise T20 competition in their domestic calendar year but due to the participation of foreign players, many domestic cricketers are unable to play in the most-growing format of the game.

“We have been thinking about a T20 tournament for the local players for a long time. As BPL is a franchise tournament and there have been overseas players, it was very necessary to introduce a T20 tournament for the local players,” Minhajul Abedin, the chief coordinator of BCB programmes, said after a meeting between the tournament committee and the technical committee at the BCB office.

“So, the tournament committee and the technical committee jointly agreed that this year the eight participating teams from NCL will play the T20 tournament which will begin from the first week of December,” he said, adding that he is expecting a big number of domestic cricketers to feature in the T20 league.

“It will be very helpful for Bangladesh cricket as around 128 to 130 players will get a chance to play there and it will also end our shortage,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, Minhajul revealed that the selection panel will select the eight teams for the T20 league and the tournament will be held in a single-leg format.

“The proposal was forwarded to the board so that the tournament can be held as per the permission of the board. The selection panel will select the eight teams as it is taking place right now. Overall, there were a lot of outcomes from the meeting and everyone gave their consent. Now (we’re) waiting for the approval from the board,” he said, adding that the forthcoming Bangladesh Cricket League, another domestic first-class tournament, will be held in April-May.

“BCL (longer-version) will be held at the end of April and May. The main reason is to organize it in hot weather as most of the time our Test matches take place in hot conditions.

“NCL will take place in good weather from October to the first week of December. So BCL will be held in hot weather from April to May. Hopefully, this decision will benefit Bangladesh cricket a lot.

“We all believe, we all agree that we can go forward in the longer version of cricket if we can end it beautifully. We also have thought that our national team players can play in maximum matches and the decisions were taken as per everyone’s consent,” he concluded.