BPL player draft on October 22

The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) player draft has been brought forward to October 22 from October 26 because of a request from the franchises, according to tournament secretary Ismail Haider Mallick.

This is the third time the date for the draft is being changed. It was originally supposed to be on October 31.

"The players draft will now be held this Thursday, October 22," Mallick told ESPNcricinfo.

"The franchises will have little time to interact with the players so they asked us to bring it forward. Zimbabwe are arriving on November 2 or 3 which would mean very little time for the franchises to sit with their players and engage them in their commercial activities.” Mallick added.

"Once the national players are called for training ahead of the Zimbabwe series, the franchises won't get access to them until right before the BPL. So we made the change of the date."

Mallick also said that the six icon players - Mashrafe Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Nasir Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah - will be allocated like everyone else in the draft and not by mutual consent as was announced earlier.