The Bangladesh Premier League 2023, also known as BPL Season 9 or Ispahani BPL 2023 (for sponsorship reasons) was the ninth season of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), the top-level professional Twenty20 cricket league in Bangladesh, organized by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). In July 2022, after the International Cricket Council accommodated the month of January and February for this league in its Future Tours Programme, the BCB announced the schedule of the BPL for the next three seasons.[1] Accordingly, the ninth season was scheduled to be held from 5 January to 16 February in 2023.[2] BCB also decided to increase the number of teams to 7 and to sell the franchise rights for 3 years from this season.[3]
BCB announced the list of franchise owners in September 2022, with five of the previous six franchises retaining ownership and the return of Rangpur Riders after two seasons.[4]
On 24 December 2022, BCB announced the fixtures for this season with two matches to be played per day in the group stage and having reserve days for all of the knockout matches.[5]
Before the draft Fortune Barishal signed up 10 players through direct recruitment, the most by any team. Unmukt Chand, former Indian cricketer also registered for the draft, being the only Indian so far to have registered in BPL's players' draft.[7] Before the draft, each team was allowed to directly recruit only one domestic player and unlimited number of foreign players.[8][9]
The players' draft was held on 23 November 2022.[10]
Each team was allowed to pick a minimum of 12 players from the draft, at least ten local players and two foreign players. But there was no maximum limit of how many foreign players could be picked from the draft.
All times are in Bangladesh Standard Time (UTC+06:00). All the matches played on weekdays (Saturday to Thursday) starts at 13:30 and 18:30 respectively while all the matches played on Friday starts at 14:00 and 19:00 respectively.
