Kolkata: Since the last couple of years a T-20 League called ‘Bengal Cricket League’ was in the mind of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) President Sourav Ganguly. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu both the state already have a local T-20 League in their state named ‘Karnataka Premiere League’ and ‘Tamil Nadu Premier League’. CAB is all set to start the much awaited Bengal Cricket from this year to bring more talented cricketer from all parts of West Bengal.
According to the sources, six teams will take part in this year’s League and the teams will play from different parts of West Bengal. A Working Committee meeting will be held at CAB next month where the officials will take the final decision regarding this matter.
The sources from CAB told that the names of the teams would be, Kolkata Riders, Jalpaiguri Panthers, Bankura Tigers, Dinajpur Cheetahs. The names of the other two teams are yet to be decided. IMGR is the marketing partner of this grand tournament. The CAB is considering to bring India’s 1983 World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev as the tournament’s brand ambassador. Each team will play five group league games then the winner of the tournament will be decided via knock-outs. Each team can pick 16 players and among them 4 players would have to be U-22 and most importantly all the players have to be from West Bengal.
There is a problem regarding the fixture of this tournament. The main obstacle to start this tournament is that the availability of the cricketers due to a tight schedule of domestic season. The key players from Bengal have to play all the important Domestic tournament first then their are a lot of tournament which is conducted by CAB too. The availability of the grounds is a major issue too.
The Group stages of Ranji Trophy will be played between 6th October to 28th November. As per the sources of CAB, if Bengal don’t qualify for the knock-outs of the Ranji Trophy, they will conduct the tournament after that as Bengal will play their next big trophy in Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 Trophy which will start from January 21st. But if they reach the knock-outs then CAB will try to conduct the tournament in between the time of knock-outs and Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 Trophy.
The marketing partner of the tournament wants that the matches should be played under the flood-lights, but CAB only has Eden Gardens where they can organize matches under the lights. So that is a problem which the state board might face before conducting the tournament. CAB is considering to broadcast this tournament in large scale through renowned Sports Channels and there would be live streaming too.