Amir has signed up to play in the BPL

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Pakistan pace bowler Mohammad Amir could feature in his first prominent domestic Twenty20 tournament after he was included in the list of foreigners that have signed up for the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).

Amir is one of 52 Pakistan players to have expressed their interest in playing in the BPL, while the remainder of the foreigners list currently consists of 48 players from England, 33 from the West Indies, 25 from Sri Lanka, five from Zimbabwe, four from Australia, four from South Africa, two from New Zealand and 13 from Associate Nations.

In the upcoming edition of the BPL, each franchise can sign seven foreign players, who will be priced between USD $30,000 and USD $70,000, and they now have two ways of doing so. The first is to select them during the draft on October 31, which will see them be paid by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). The second way is to contract them directly, meaning that franchises will be responsible for paying the players in full.

“The response is better than the last two tournaments,” tournament secretary Ismail Haider Mallick told ESPNcricinfo. “I have heard that many big players have signed up with the franchises while we also have a pretty strong list of players which we will make available to the franchises. We have appointed a company to help us out. Except for those players who are busy at the time, we have a lot of players available for this season’s BPL.”

Meanwhile, BCB spokesman Jalal Yunus has vowed to provide “adequate security” for all foreign players after Islamic State claimed that they were responsible for the deaths of an Italian aid worker and Japanese farmer.

“We have assured adequate security for all the cricketers playing here,” Yunus told reporters. “So there was no major concern from the foreign players.”