Overseas players started arriving in Dhaka to join their respective franchisee teams’ pre-tournament practice session as only a week left to begin Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) fifth edition.

This year the blockbuster T20 tournament will start from the new host city- Sylhet, where the initial eight matches will be played at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium (SICS) since November 4.

The bulk of the franchisee teams already kick-started their BPL mission with their available local players at different places across the country but they’ll get their foreign players with the locals by this week and then travel to the venue ground few days prior to the outset of the showpiece event.

Comilla Victorians is the first BPL franchisee team, who went to the venue city with available local and foreign players to set their base camp, wherein they held their first training session on Thursday under the supervision of the head coach Mohammad Salahuddin. The matches for the first five days will be held in Sylhet then the big show will take place in the capital before again going to outside Dhaka in Chittagong from November 24. The final and last phase will be staged at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in the capital from December 2.

The 2015 BPL champions team will play a practice match with the local Surma Sixers on October 30 before going to start their maiden campaign in BPL against defending champions Dhaka Dynamites on the curtain raiser fixture at the SICS.

Among the BPL franchisee teams, Khulna Titans got the most number of foreign recruitment including their head coach Mahela Jayawardane and commenced their BPL voyage.

The foreign players joined the team’s ongoing practice camp at the ULAB university ground. They appeared in at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)-National Cricket Academy (NCA) ground to hold their training session yesterday.

They needed all players for the combination of the team, said Titans team manager Nafees Iqbal after the practice match.

“We’ve to play with the local and foreign players. Each team could play maximum five foreign players and six local players. Actually it’s not biggest thing who is local or foreigner. The biggest thing is performance,” said Nafees Iqbal.

“At this moment, we have got Carlos Brathwaite along with Chadwick Walton and Jofra Chioke Archer. Kyle Abbott and Rilee Rossouw will come tomorrow,” Iqbal told media.

In a bid to reach their expected destination what they are yet to touch after being taken the Khulan franchisee team, Khulna Titans brought in the fantastic foreign players along with the local players.  

The biggest signing for the Titans has been Australia’s hard-hitting batsman Chris Lynn, who recently hogged the attention of the T20 fans with his powerful hitting capability. Khulna’s franchisee invested heavily in the players of the West Indies this time around as they have Carlos Brathwaite, Chadwick Walton and Jofra Chioke Archer in their line-up.

Apart from them, they have English cricketers Benny Howell and Dawid Malan, alongside Sri Lankan Shehan Jayasuriya and Seekkuge Prasanna.

Also joining them in the Titans squad are Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed, who led his country to lift the 2017 Champions Trophy, its new find Shadab Khan and Junaid Khan as does Rilee Rossouw and Kyle Abbott, who left South African shores to play county cricket as a Kolpak cricketer.

Already the most of them arrived and practiced together with Muktar Ali, Abu Jayed, Imran Ali, Shafiul Islam, Dhiman Ghosh, Yasir Ali and Nazmul Hossain Shanto. Some of the youngster players the likes of Afif Hossain and Saif Hassan will join the BPL third chapter in Chittagong.