Last update on: Sun Mar 23, 2025 08:41 PM
Past and present cricketers gathered in Mirpur on Sunday to hold a Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB) meeting and after 11 years, CWAB’s leadership changed with president Naimur Rahman and general secretary Debobroto Paul stepping down.
CWAB formed an ad-hoc committee of 13 members with former cricketer Saleem Shahed as the convener during the meeting attended by around 50 players.
Cricketers such as national team captain Najmul Hossain have been named in the committee as representatives of divisions. The committee will now consider the organisation’s constitution amendments and form an election commission for upcoming elections, slated to take place tentatively within three months’ time.
In 2019, cricketers of the country went on strike, feeling undermined by the board and unrepresented by the cricketers’ welfare organisation. In 2023, in CWAB’s first Annual General Meeting in 10 years, no other candidates challenged the leadership even as it did not mean cricketers had been happy with all that had gone on.
This DPL is being played on reduced budget with CWAB not having any say over the players’ plight. Sources informed that one national team player is playing for a newly promoted club where his contractual salary has been halved from previous years for participating in seven games.
When asked whether CWAB has done anything to fulfil players’ wishes in recent years, one cricketer pointed out that DPL was being played under reduced salaries.
“I have seen nothing of that sort [positive changes to help players]. At least 50-60 percent of the payment has been reduced this DPL from previous years,” he said.
The cricketers have requested that first-class contracts and match fees be improved. Currently, there are three categories (A, B, C) receiving monthly salaries of Tk 35,000, Tk 25,000 and Tk 15,000 respectively. A discussion took place yesterday to bump those figures up to Tk 100,000, Tk 80,000 and Tk 60,000 respectively.
“For 15 years, there has been no real activities seen in CWAB,” another cricketer said.
“Since everything has started afresh, let’s see what happens. Now the players representing the divisions will sit down with players from their respective divisions and discuss the changes in rules and regulations (proposed by the ad-hoc committee),” he added.
Avoiding conflicts of interest has also been on the agenda in forming the ad-hoc committee. Those representing the board as directors were not named in the committee and once the ad-hoc committee completes its work in forming election commission, members can also partake in elections.
“We will consider these issues [conflict of interest] in a more complete manner so that a transparent system grows. We have to keep in mind that those that are players, are directly or indirectly involved with the board. So we will try to formulate the policy and then abide by it,” Saleem, convener of the committee, told reporters.
