The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is set to resume competitive cricket in the country after a gap of nearly seven months through a three-team 50-over competition from October 11.
The three teams — comprising cricketers from the national team, the High Performance Squad and players from the 2019 Under-19 World Cup-winning team — will be led by Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah Riyad and Najmul Hossain Shanto. The final, which will be telecast live, will take place on October 23. All matches will be day-night affairs and take place at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.
According to BCB President Nazmul Hassan the upcoming tournament is part of the continuing initiatives by the board aimed at a gradual resumption of normal cricketing activities which have been halted since March due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As we are planning to resume cricket and cricketers have already played practice matches among themselves and we are going to start the tournament from October 11 with three teams. We would want to include the maximum number of players. We have also given the condition that each player should get a chance to play at least two games as we have finalised the three teams today. We are also thinking of telecasting the final along with live streaming for the other games through various platforms.
“We will observe this tournament as a test case. I couldn’t go to the ground today, and I wanted to meet the players but I was told that I am not allowed to go inside the bio-secure bubble, and I was happy to hear that. We are actually trying to adapt to these things and if we can implement such things among our players, it will give them courage and increase our chances of hosting foreign sides in future,” Hassan told reporters yesterday.
However, he said the main challenge for the BCB is to arrange the Dhaka Premier League, which has been halted after the first round since March.
“There could be a problem in resuming the league [Dhaka Premier League], although we are also willing to resume that but we wanted to know two things from the clubs. We want to know if they are interested to play as it is the clubs who will have to manage their players. If the clubs are not interested or unable to do that, we wanted to know what should be the alternative course of action.
“The second thing is even if players are under our responsibility or under the clubs’, what are the measures they can take to make ensure the safety of cricketers – whether the players will go to their home or stay with the club. If the clubs can give me a security plan, I have no objection to resuming the league. They are yet to inform me about that issue and there is no decision made in this regard,” he said.
