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CAB President Snehasish Ganguly announced that the inaugural season of Bengal Pro T20 League will start in June 2024. Image | CAB
The inaugural season of Bengal Pro T20 League will start in June 2024, right after the end of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 with 8 franchise teams consisting of men's and women's teams, Cricket Association of Bengal president Snehahish Ganguly announced on Tuesday, at the Eden Gardens.
Though CAB has been planning the tournament for very long, this time they were able to get everything going for them to chalk out the Bengal Pro T20 League. "We have been planning to organise the Franchise-based League for some time now. After doing a very careful study of similar Leagues in India and abroad, we are now ready to organise the Bengal Pro T20 League this year. We have all necessary permissions from BCCI and the blueprint for the League is also in place," CAB President Snehasish Ganguly said in the press conference.
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"We will ensure this League becomes the best in business and the budding talents from all over the State of West Bengal get the much-needed exposure and the opportunity to play absolute professional cricket," he then added.
The inaugural season of the tournament will see 8 franchise teams participating with their men's and women's teams. The franchises will be named after cities or districts of West Bengal to ensure the reach and exposure to every corner of West Bengal.
"Quite a few esteemed business houses have already come on board to own a Team and the CAB will close all the slots by the mid of this month. At the same time, the CAB is looking forward to more eminent business houses to become a part of this history in-making by joining in as Sponsors and Partners and becoming active stakeholders of Bengal Cricket," an official press release from CAB said.
In the first season, the franchises will be selecting players through a robust draft and each franchise will be allowed to have 17 players for their men's squad and 16 players for their women's squad. This means a total of 264 players will be able to showcase their talent during the tournament.
"The CAB will also introduce the Code of Conduct for all teams similar to the ICC & BCCI Code of Conduct and the entire League will be monitored by the Anti-Corruption Unit of the BCCI. All the teams with their support staff will be staying in 5-star hotels during the entire length of the Tournament," the official press release stated.
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Tournament structure
The tournament will be played in a league-and-knockout format with a total of 31 games for each men's and women's teams. The men's teams will play at the Eden Gardens Cricket Stadium while the women's teams will play at the Jadavpur University Salt Lake Campus Ground. Though CAB has not mentioned their streaming partners yet, they have confirmed that the men's games will televised on one of the top sports channels while the women's games will be played on an OTT platform.
Free entry for the fans at the ground
Thinking about the fans and the crowd the Cricket Association of Bengal also decided to have entry free for both men's and women's games at the venues.
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CAB to invite all the IPL teams to take a look at their talent
The Cricket Association of Bengal will also invite the scouts of the IPL teams to come and take a look at the talents of Bengal during the Bengal Pro T20 League.