Cricket Association of Bengal unveils Bengal Pro T20 League

Announcing the  Bengal Pro T20 League, which will feature franchise-based teams, CAB president Snehasish Ganguly said, "We are now ready to organise the Bengal Pro T20 League this year. We have all necessary permissions from the BCCI and the blueprint for the League is also in place."

"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," said Snehasish Ganguly.

"We will have eight Franchise teams and each franchise will have both men’s & women’s teams as per the criteria and pool provided by the CAB," he added.

As in IPL the teams are named after the cities of India, the teams in Bengal Pro T20 League will be named after cities or districts of West Bengal having multiple districts as their catchment area, making the league very inclusive and reaching out to every nook and corner of the state.

For the Inaugural year, the players will be selected by the franchises through a robust draft process from various categories including Bengal Seniors to players from District catchment areas, as per the guidelines provided by the CAB.

This will ensure Cricketers from all across the state get an opportunity to showcase their talent at the highest level in Bengal Cricket.

Each team will comprise of a squad of 17 players for men and 16 players for women, that is a total of 264 Bengal cricketers will be able to showcase themselves from this platform.

The CAB will also introduce the Code of Conduct for all teams similar to the ICC and BCCI Code of Conduct and the entire League will be monitored by the Anti-Corruption Unit of the BCCI.

The CAB has also decided to keep cash prices for the champions and runners up teams for both men’s and women’s League.

The tournament will be played in a league-and-knockout format, that is a total of 31 matches each for both men and women.

All men's matches will be played at the Eden Gardens and the women's matches at the BCCI approved Jadavpur University, Salt Lake Campus Ground.

The men's matches will be shown live on one of the top sports channels and the women's matches will go live on a leading OTT platform, according to reports.

The CAB has also decided to keep the entry absolutely free of charge for the spectators for this season at both the venues.