Tamim Iqbal Announces Landmark Pay Increase for Domestic Cricketers
The mood around Bangladesh cricket had been turning dark. The Bangladesh Premier League was postponed, the country’s only franchise T20 tournament shelved for the season, and a sizeable chunk of professional cricketers suddenly felt the ground shift beneath their feet.
On Thursday in Mirpur, Tamim Iqbal walked into an impromptu press conference and tried to put that fear to bed in one stroke.
At the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, after a meeting of the BCB’s working committee, the board president announced a sweeping, landmark rise in match fees across domestic formats for both men and women – an overhaul that effectively doubles, and in some cases more than doubles, what players earn per game.
Big money for the grind, not just the glamour
Under the new structure, men’s first-class cricketers will receive Tk 1.5 lakh per match. Not long ago, that figure stood at Tk 70,000. When Tamim first took charge of the BCB ad-hoc committee, he pushed it to Tk 1 lakh. Now he has gone further.
List A fees have also been doubled: from Tk 50,000 to Tk 1 lakh per game. Domestic T20s, often overshadowed by the BPL’s glitter, jump from Tk 40,000 to Tk 80,000 per match.
The message is clear. The board wants the backbone of Bangladesh cricket – the first-class and List A circuit – to be a viable livelihood on its own, not a waiting room for BPL contracts.
The women’s game has not been left behind. Match fees for a four-day fixture have risen from Tk 20,000 to Tk 40,000. One-day games go from Tk 15,000 to Tk 30,000. T20s double from Tk 10,000 to Tk 20,000.
“Everything has increased by 100% or more,” Tamim said, laying out the numbers and then the logic. His calculation is blunt and ambitious: a domestic player who completes a full season, with these match fees and salary included, should now earn roughly Tk 35–40 lakh a year – more than Tk 3 lakh a month.
For a cricketer who does not have a BPL deal, that changes the conversation. That changes a career.
One league postponed, 200 cricketers protected
The trigger for all this was the BPL’s postponement and the unease that followed. A section of players, already frustrated, had voiced their displeasure with the Cricketers Welfare Association leadership, unhappy with how their concerns were being handled in talks with the board.
Tamim chose to widen the lens.
“In the BPL, you will see 50, 60, 65, 70 local cricketers play,” he pointed out. “But if you think about Bangladesh cricket, in first-class, List A, T20, there are plus or minus 150 to 200 cricketers involved.”
Those 150–200 players, many of them reliant on Dhaka League income and seasonal contracts, suddenly faced the loss of a major earning window. The board president acknowledged that “maybe financially, what it was two or three years ago, perhaps that has dropped,” and that the absence of BPL this year “can be a financial impact.”
The pressure finally told – not in the form of a one-off compensation package, but in a structural reset.
“I never wanted a one-year solution for the players,” Tamim stressed. He framed the decision as a long-term answer, one that “would benefit them year after year after year”, by making BCB tournaments alone enough to keep a professional cricketer and his family financially stable.
“To run their family, I don’t think they will need to worry anymore. It is a significant step,” he said. The implication was unmissable: if the board is guaranteeing security, it expects something back.
No fitness, no favours
The raise comes with a hard edge. Tamim did not sugar-coat it.
“We will fully fulfil the demands that came from the players’ side, but they also have to fulfil the demands from our side,” he warned. The days of leniency around fitness and professionalism, especially in first-class cricket, are over.
“When someone fails to pass the fitness test, there will be no requests or anything like that listened to,” he said. “When the board is providing everything and giving all financial support, the professionalism from the players’ side will now also be monitored very strongly.”
The line is drawn. Higher pay, higher standards. No more quiet exemptions for those who fall short in pre-season tests.
One board, one dressing room?
Tamim was also keen to cool talk of confrontation between players and administrators, particularly after the recent discontent around the Cricketers Welfare Association.
“So, one or two proposals had come from the players’ side,” he said. “Eventually, we both side – I don’t consider it two sides at all. There is only one side, that we are all one. Cricketers, the cricket board, directors, president – all are one.”
The rhetoric is unifying, almost dressing-room in tone. But behind it lies a firm assertion of control: the board will meet financial demands, yet expects absolute buy-in on fitness, discipline and commitment to the domestic structure.
A shifting financial burden
Away from the headline numbers, another strategic move is taking shape. Cricbuzz understands the BCB is no longer keen to shoulder the full financial load of certain tournaments, including the National Cricket League (NCL) T20 and the Bangladesh Cricket League (BCL) four-day and one-day competitions.
That stance hints at a recalibration of where the board spends and where it expects partners or stakeholders to step in. At the same time, it has chosen to pour money directly into the pockets of players who commit to the domestic calendar.
The result is a bold bet: pay the cricketers more, demand more from them, and gradually reshape the ecosystem around them.
For a domestic pro in Bangladesh, the BPL once felt like the only real jackpot. After Tamim’s announcement in Mirpur, the grind of first-class and List A cricket suddenly looks like a career that can stand on its own. The question now is simple – with the safety net finally in place, how far can the country’s cricketers push the standard of the game that feeds the national team?
