Sohan, Bijoy at one side, Mashrafee & Tamim at the other

"I am not sure yet if I have been made captain," a player told The Daily Star recently when asked to clarify if he has been assigned captaincy of his BPL side.

The news of his captaincy had already been conveyed to the media but not the player himself which is a prime example of the tentativeness of the teams in assigning captaincy this season.

With the tournament set to begin tomorrow, a pre-tournament photo session with the BPL trophy took place yesterday, where the captains of the seven participating teams should've been present, but that wasn't the case.

However, when the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury was asked about it during a press conference yesterday after the board unveiled the title sponsor of this year's BPL, he played down the issue.

"It's not a violation [of tournament guidelines] maybe they had limitations in announcing the name of the captain," the BCB CEO said yesterday.

Amidst the indecisiveness about captaincy of the franchises, a few surprising names such as Mosaddek Hossain, Nurul Hasan Sohan and Anamul Haque have emerged as captains in this year's BPL.

Mossaddek, an experienced captain in the domestic circuit, will lead Dudanto Dhaka, Anamul will captain Khulna Tigers while Sohan will lead the Rangpur Riders, who chose him as the skipper over the current Bangladesh captain in all three formats Shakib Al Hasan.

Liton Das, who was part of the 2012 U19 World Cup batch alongside Mosaddek, Anamul and Sohan, has been put in charge of the defending champions Comilla Victorians.

Shuvagata Hom, another experienced domestic cricketer, is set to lead Chattogram Challengers.

This year, most teams have put their faith on new faces to lead their teams, while Sylhet Strikers and Fortune Barishal have kept their faith on veterans Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and Tamim Iqbal respectively.

Mashrafe, however, wasn't part of yesterday's photoshoot, as Mohammad Mithun stood in his place, which raised some speculation regarding who would be Sylhet captain, given that Mashrafe had not attended the training session earlier on the day.

Later it was clarified in a press release that Mashrafe will lead.

The tournament's title sponsor had only been announced yesterday which also creates issues with the franchises getting their jerseys and gears ready on time before the start of the tournament.

Although confusion over captaincy is nothing new in BPL, as Mehedi Hasan Miraz had once been dropped from captaincy by Chattogram just before a match, this time the problem was more pronounced.

Given the captaincy assignments, Mashrafe and Tamim are at one extreme, Bijoy or Sohan at the other.

This season could be the start of change as new faces take over captaincy duties or it could be another false dawn. Only time will tell how long till a few of the franchises see a change in captaincy hot seat, which won't be anything new to BPL.