Lisa Sthalekar, former Australian women's cricketer and current president of the World Cricketers' Association (WCA), said on Sunday that the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), the country's lone franchise-based T20 tournament, needs to improve its overall standards to attract foreign cricketers.

In the recent past, the WCA released an assessment based on metrics developed in conjunction with, and considered important by, players, agents and players' associations. The metrics are based on key benchmarks in cricket and other sports, while major domestic leagues are defined as those featuring five or more current Full Member international cricketers as overseas players.

According to the assessment, which covered 10 T20 tournaments, The Hundred leads with 75.2 points, while the BPL is at the bottom of the list with 22.6 points. The IPL is third with 62.6 points, behind SA20, which earned 68 points.

The WCA president urged the newly formed Cricket Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB) to work together with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and ensure that the tournament, which has been largely criticised for non-payment and fixing issues, gets a fresh start that will encourage foreign cricketers to participate.

"What the World Cricketers' Association does, and we have it on our website, is almost a traffic-light system of all the T20 leagues around the world. It's to help players, administrators and agents understand what the issues have been and what the successful aspects of each T20 league are," Sthalekar told reporters at Mirpur.

"Obviously, if you look at the BPL, its traffic light doesn't have a lot of green, unfortunately. Speaking to Mithun (president of the CWAB), I said this is an opportunity for them as a new organisation and executive committee to work with the Bangladesh Cricket Board to ensure that overseas players want to come here and play, and that they can potentially move into the amber and green categories," she said.

"And for it to be a tournament that people want to travel to and be part of because you've got some wonderful facilities and some wonderful cricketers. Obviously, that's shown by how Bangladesh have been able to perform in recent times. So hopefully, the two organisations can work together and ensure that the BPL is as strong and prosperous as it can be," she added.

Sthalekar added that payment disputes need to be addressed if the BPL wants to move higher in the rankings and believes CWAB has a big role to play in this regard.

"I think for professional cricketers, it's their job. All of you have jobs. You do your job, and you expect to be paid. I don't think it makes a difference. A professional cricketer, if they've gone out and played cricket and done their job, should be paid for it. And if the system and structure have put frameworks and contracts in place, then they should be honoured. But that's all domestic cricket, and that's up to the players' association here on the ground to work through," said Sthalekar.

"What the World Cricketers' Association tends to do is assist and help when we go into ICC events. We tend to operate at that next level. Our dealings are with the ICC; they're not necessarily with the Bangladesh Cricket Board or Cricket Australia. That's for the individual players' association in each country. However, Mithun will be coming to London, where we have a board meeting. It'll be exciting for him to be part of it, and no doubt he'll learn a lot more about players' associations and the programmes we run across the world," she added.

Sthalekar said she is confident that the current CWAB administration will improve with time.

"Well, it's been great to actually be here in Bangladesh and catch up with Mithun and a number of the other committee members the other night. We had an hour-long conversation at our hotel, and it was wonderful to get an understanding of what the new administration has been doing. Obviously, there have been some challenging times for them, and they've probably faced a fair bit of criticism, but at the end of the day, they're here representing all professional cricketers in Bangladesh, and I think they've been doing a wonderful job," she said.

"These are new administrators who are learning about a players' association, what it can do, and how they can be the voice of professional cricketers in Bangladesh," she added.