There is never a dull moment in Bangladesh cricket and one does not always have to wait for sporadic on-field successes for excitement.
Bangladesh’s premier all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan again proved that as his marathon Facebook conversation on Saturday night with Cricfrenzy, a cricket portal, has caused quite a stir in the country’s cricket fraternity. It has comfortable overshadowed the Tamim Iqbal-led side’s chastening defeat in their first ODI against New Zealand in Dunedin following an abysmal batting performance.
During his long conversation, Shakib was as shrewd as he always has been on the field, but hardly said anything new regarding the problems in Bangladesh cricket.
But there was an interesting titbit: according to Shakib, despite the good leadership of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) President Nazmul Hassan and the contributions of former national captain-turned BCB Director Khaled Mahmud, there are so many problems in the country’s cricket.
| ”It was a long interview, so we will have to go through it first and then discuss about it. However, I did hear that he (Shakib) said I didn’t read his letter properly. Since Shakib said that he is willing to play Tests, now we might reconsider his NOC which we gave for playing the IPL.”
Akram Khan BCB cricket operations chairman |
“We have a number of people in the cricket board who have played for Bangladesh, but apart from [Khaled Mahmud] Sujon bhai, they are not too involved. Sujon bhai and [Nazmul Hassan] Papon bhai must be credited for the 2019 Under-19 World Cup win. But I can’t find any more people from the board to give credit. I don’t think they think much about cricket,” was Shakib’s take on the functioning of the board.
There is more excitement – Shakib’s salvo would not go unanswered. Akram Khan , BCB’s cricket operation committee chairman who bore the brunt of Shakib’s ire, after a meeting at the BCB boss’s residence said yesterday, “Since Shakib has made it clear that he is not unwilling to play Tests, we will reconsider his NOC [no objection certificate] for the IPL.”
On the other hand, during this period Tamim will definitely be looking forward to make his words come true and prove they are proud of their batting and are not a team to be shot out for 130 odd runs when they play the second ODI in Christchurch on Tuesday.
The entire team know well that if they can somehow manage one win from this tour, their mission of rewriting a sordid history in New Zealand will be successful.
In all this off- and on-field discussions, there is hardly any chance the Bangabandhu 22nd National Cricket League (NCL), which gets underway today, will make any headlines until another disaster in Test cricket brings our first-class competitions to the fore.
Are we actually discussing anything new or taking any new steps regarding the poor state of the country’s cricket, other than blaming each other following one failure after another?
Players, including Shakib, are right from their perspective; board officials are right in their planning and policy and pundits keep writing the same thing again and again — this is the same old story of Bangladesh cricket.
Still, there is no dull moment — even when we keep singing the same old song.
