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BCB now mulling resumption of competitive cricket in country

September 27, 2020 00:00:00


With the Sri Lanka tour drowned in uncertainty, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is now mulling resumption of competitive cricket in the country. BCB had initially planned to start their cricketing activities through the tour of Sri Lanka with the proposed three-match Test series, followed by domestic cricket, reports Cricbuzz.

Since March there has been no competitive cricket in the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Dhaka Premier League, the country's traditional 50-over club tournament that is considered to be the major source of income for majority of cricketers, came to an abrupt halt earlier this year.

Meanwhile, some of the national cricketers were allowed to resume individual training and the BCB later started a skill-based national camp to prepare for the tour of Sri Lanka. But there has been no clarity yet if the series will proceed as planned, with the BCB not agreeing to the 14-day quarantine that will keep the players locked up indoors with no training allowed. This situation has forced the BCB to shift its focus towards domestic cricket, irrespective of whether the tour happens or not.

The BCB, though, is aware of the challenges when it comes to starting domestic cricket - including managing close to 60 cricketers at a time, keeping them isolated, chalking out the schedule, defining the SOPs, among other things.

The Cricket Welfare Association of Bangladesh, in the meantime, has been conducting regular meetings with the stakeholders to find a solution for the domestic cricketers, who have been hit hard financially with the competitions not taking place.

"We need to understand that just because national players are not feeling the pinch, it does not imply others are having a similar fate," CWAB's secretary Debabrata Paul told the online sports news portal.

"Cricketers who regularly feature in domestic leagues usually plan their expenses on the basis of the payment they receive from different teams each year. They now feel that they are running out of time to make financial plans for the family."

In this backdrop, the online sports news portal tried to find out what is in store for Bangladesh as far as domestic cricket is concerned.

Dhaka Premier League

BCB was eager to resume the DPL, which got postponed after the opening round. They had even planned to host the tournament by dividing the 12 clubs in two groups and completing the competition at one go in Chattogram and Cox's Bazaar. But the plan had to be shelved.

While the Corona situation was not improving, the clubs were also reluctant to play citing lack of funds to pay the cricketers. The Club officials said they are largely dependent on donations from different people, and with Covid having a huge impact on the economy, they were unable to convince the donors.

"We need to host DPL at some point as that will pave the way for other competitions. But before resuming DPL we need to play a competition with limited cricketers," said DPL governing council secretary Ismail Haider. "If we manage to do that successfully we will be able to restart DPL in November and December, provided we are able to overcome all the obligations."

National Cricket League

Usually the NCL - the country's traditional first-class competition - kicks off in October but that won't be the case this time round. The tournament committee is not yet ready to host a competition comprising eight divisions while divisional sports associations too are also not keen to take part, citing their inability to prepare for the tournament on a short notice owing to the impact of the pandemic.

It is likely that the competition will be held early next year - probably before Bangladesh's tour of New Zealand tour in February, as it will also provide some match time for the national cricketers to prepare for the series.

Bangladesh Cricket League

According to some board insiders, there is a huge possibility of BCL - the franchise based four-day tournament - happening in the coming days considering it is played between four teams and can be managed with the existing workforce.

"I think it is manageable and we can think of playing BCL in BKSP as it can be completed by keeping the cricketers isolated for the entire part of the tournament," said selector Habibul Bashar.

Bangladesh Premier League

Initially, the BPL was slated to be played in December but the organisers are now planning for a window in March for the T20 tournament to take place.

Corporate League T20

Apart from the regular domestic competitions, some of which are unlikely to resume in the coming days, BCB is trying to host a Corporate League T20 competition. BCB has already started negotiating with some Corporate houses to come forward and take part in the competition, which will be beneficial to local cricketers.

A three-team tournament

BCB is planning to host a cricket tournament involving the Bangladesh national team, Bangladesh A team and the High Performance Unit, if no other series is possible. This was discussed during the last BCB meeting and like the BCL, this is also planned to be held in BKSP.


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