The alarm bells were ringing once it was revealed that the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has not taken any bank guarantees from the franchises ahead of the ongoing season of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).

And now, the board's worst fears are getting realised with players from different franchises saying their dues have not been cleared.

The situation deteriorated to such an extent that Durbar Rajshahi had to cancel Wednesday's training as their players threatened to no show. There were also doubts over whether Rajshahi's scheduled match against Sylhet Strikers yesterday would take place but eventually the game went ahead and Rajshahi won by 65 runs and climbed to fourth position in the table.

One Rajshahi player confirmed yesterday that before the match he received 25 percent of his total payment but said there might be other players who were yet to be paid.

According to the payment schedule of the BPL governing council, franchises are supposed to pay all players 50 percent of their total fees before the tournament, 25 percent during the tournament, and the rest after the event.

But so far, none of the franchises have been able to follow this schedule. It was learnt that only Dhaka Capitals, Rangpur Riders and Fortune Barishal have been able to maintain regular player payments.

One Chittagong Kings player, wanting to stay anonymous, told this reporter yesterday that there is some discontent brewing in their camp as well and the players would raise the issue if they don't receive payments in two days' time.

However, no one is willing to take responsibility for letting the situation deteriorate to this extent with BCB director Najmul Abedeen Fahim, who is also the member secretary of the BPL governing council, saying he learnt about the payment issue from the media.

"We came to know about it from the media. We have been able to make them [franchises] understand and they were able to start making payments," Fahim said yesterday in Chattogram.

"We are hoping they [Rajshahi and other franchises] will continue this way and be aware of their responsibilities and abide by the rules of payments."

Fahim also downplayed BCB's failure on keeping track on players' payments, an issue that has plagued the tournament historically, by saying, "When payments are not made, it would naturally reach our ears. What happened with Rajshahi, when we got to know about it, we got to work," Fahim said.

As the BCB is currently running without standing committees, it should not come as a surprise that the BPL too is being run in a callous fashion. It was also learnt yesterday that the tri-party agreements between franchise, players and the board, have not been sent to the BCB yet.

Fahim said they were embarrassed by the entire situation.

"We are embarrassed by these occurrences, the whole cricket fraternity is. It's a lesson hopefully for all of us. We will address these issues so that they do not occur in the future. We should have done many things which we perhaps didn't do but it's also true that this edition is being held in a unique circumstance, we were under pressure regarding many issues."