The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has launched a new T20 tournament called the “Odomo Bangladesh T20 Cup” to keep the country’s top players busy.
The event will feature all the big cricketers who were excluded from the global competition due to the government’s refusal to allow them to participate in the T20 World Cup in India. The tournament will consist of three teams, including Dhumketu XI, Darbar XI and Duronto XI. These teams will be led by Liton Das, Najmul Hasan Shanto, and Akbar Ali, respectively. The three teams will play one match each against each other in the round-robin stage. The group stage matches are scheduled for February 5, 6 and 7, while the top two teams will compete in the final on February 9. All matches will be played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka.
The BCB has also introduced the “impact player rule” in official matches for the first time in this tournament. Under this rule, any team will be allowed to replace any player in its starting XI with a twelfth player during the match, who will be selected from the list announced at the time of the toss. According to the board, this tournament will have regular T20 status and the total prize money and match fees have been set at around 25 million taka (about 200,000 US dollars).On the other hand, according to Cricinfo, some Bangladeshi cricketers have also expressed disappointment at missing out on the T20 World Cup, however, they did not openly share their feelings or the details of the meeting with government officials on January 24.
Bangladesh’s participation in the World Cup was thrown into doubt when the government’s sports advisor announced that the team would not tour India. After this decision, things became complicated and eventually, when negotiations failed, the ICC included Scotland in the tournament instead of Bangladesh. During this time, domestic cricket activities have also been limited. Several domestic teams decided to boycott the Dhaka League, while the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League for the 2025-26 season has not yet started, due to which the players were not getting much match practice opportunities.
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