Tamim Iqbal Announces Landmark Pay Rise for Domestic Cricket

The mood around Bangladesh cricket had been turning sour. The Bangladesh Premier League was postponed, uncertainty swirled over lost income, and a section of players had started to bristle, openly questioning whether anyone was really fighting their corner.

On Thursday at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Tamim Iqbal walked into an impromptu press conference and tried to change that conversation in one sweep.

A landmark pay rise

After a meeting of the BCB working committee in Mirpur, the board president announced a sweeping, across-the-board rise in match fees for domestic cricket, for both men and women. Not a cosmetic tweak. A reset.

For men’s cricket, the numbers tell the story.

• First-class match fees jump from Tk 70,000 to Tk 1.5 lakh per game. When Tamim first came in as head of the BCB ad-hoc committee, he had already raised that figure to Tk 1 lakh. Now he has gone further, more than doubling the original amount.
• List A cricket follows the same aggressive line. Match fees move from Tk 50,000 to Tk 1 lakh.
• Domestic T20s go from Tk 40,000 to Tk 80,000.

The women’s game, so often left behind in these conversations, is firmly on the table this time. The four-day match fee for women doubles from Tk 20,000 to Tk 40,000. One-day fees climb from Tk 15,000 to Tk 30,000. Women’s T20s also double, from Tk 10,000 to Tk 20,000.

“Everything has increased by 100% or more,” Tamim said, outlining the new structure and its impact.

From BPL anxiety to long-term security

This did not come out of a vacuum. The postponement of the BPL, Bangladesh’s only franchise-based T20 league, had spooked players who rely heavily on that window for a financial boost. Cricbuzz had already reported growing insecurity in the dressing rooms and beyond, and frustration had begun to spill over towards the Cricketers Welfare Association, accused by some of not pushing hard enough.

Tamim tried to shut down any notion of a standoff.

“So, one or two proposals had come from the players’ side. 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,” he told reporters.

His argument is simple: BPL money reaches only a slice of the country’s professionals.

“In the BPL, you will see 50, 60, 65, 70 local cricketers play. But if you think about Bangladesh cricket, in first-class, List A, T20, there are plus or minus 150 to 200 cricketers involved,” he pointed out.

The pressure finally told in the form of a structural solution rather than a one-off patch.

“Because the BPL will not take place this year, there can be a financial impact,” Tamim said. “But I never wanted a one-year solution for the players. I wanted there to be a solution, my board wanted there to be a solution that would benefit them year after year after year.”

He believes this new pay scale does exactly that. By his calculation, a domestic cricketer who plays a full season, combining match fees and salary, can now earn roughly Tk 35 lakh to Tk 40 lakh annually.

“If you divide that by 12, a player will have an income of more than Tk 3 lakh per month,” he explained. “To run their family, I don’t think they will need to worry anymore. It is a significant step.”

The message is clear: you should be able to make a solid living by playing in BCB tournaments alone.

Big money, bigger demands

Tamim did not dress this up as charity. With better money comes a harder line.

He made it explicit that the board will not bend when it comes to the mandatory pre-season fitness tests that have often sparked quiet lobbying and backdoor requests.

“We will fully fulfil the demands that came from the players’ side, but they also have to fulfil the demands from our side,” he said. “There will be no sacrifice when it comes to professionalism in first-class cricket, which is something that is discussed a lot sometimes among us.”

Then came the warning.

“When someone fails to pass the fitness test, there will be no requests or anything like that listened to. 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 subtext is unmistakable: the board has paid up; now it expects players to match that commitment with their conditioning, preparation, and attitude across the season.

A shifting financial model

Behind the bold numbers sits another reality. Cricbuzz understands that the BCB is growing weary of carrying the full financial weight of tournaments like the National Cricket League (NCL) T20 and the Bangladesh Cricket League (BCL) four-day and one-day competitions.

The new pay structure, then, is not just about generosity. It is about rebalancing where the money goes and who shoulders which burden, while making sure the core group of 150–200 professionals can sustain their careers even in a year without the BPL.

For now, the headline is simple: domestic cricketers in Bangladesh have just been handed one of the most significant pay rises in the country’s cricket history. The next question is whether they can meet the standard that Tamim has so publicly set.