BCB Tournament Committee Chairman Ahmed Sajjadul Alam walks into the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium after the 2023 BCL One Day Final in Dhaka on December 30, 2023. – Courtesy photo
Bangladesh Cricket Board’s tournament committee chairman Ahmed Sajjadul Alam believes that the lack of competition in the country’s first-class cricket, which is caused by the absence of national team members in these tournaments, is hurting the national team in Tests. Is, and so he has urged the authorities. Creating a national team-friendly domestic calendar. In a discussion with New Age Mahibur HilolThe veteran organizer also talked about the shortage of grounds to run first-class matches, which is a major concern.
new Age: The domestic setup is often criticized for the national team’s poor performance in Tests. Do you consider this to be the reason?
Ahmed Sajjadul Alam: Not completely but yes, mostly I accept it. However, I think we are not failing just because of this. The sad thing is that we only talk about winning instead of playing an acceptable brand of cricket. We had high expectations from the series against Sri Lanka and when our boys could not fulfill them, we started talking about the current domestic structure. Some of our players also talked about this matter. Of course, we have a lot more to do in domestic cricket. Still, I would definitely say that for improvement in a particular field, there is an issue of self-motivation and environment. The bottom line is that we are now discussing our domestic cricket because our team performed poorly in the Sri Lanka series. If they perform well and win the series then we definitely won’t talk about it. But I believe that the level of competition in our domestic cricket is not up to our expectations.
NA: Does the BCB have any plans to address the current shortcomings of the national team players in Tests? If so, what are the barriers to implementing them?
Sajjadul: The tournament committee people are not the right people to point out the shortcomings of our national players because we have a bunch of highly paid coaches for that. As the Head of the Tournament Committee, my job is to conduct various competitions and provide facilities for the players as well as maintain smooth communication with the stakeholders, including players and organizers. The main problem I have observed is that despite wanting to participate in domestic cricket, our national team members are unable to do so. On some occasions, he refused to play due to recovery problems after playing for a long time. But I have seen that if he does not have national team responsibility then he is keen to play domestic cricket. I am telling you once again that we cannot decide the level of competition in domestic sports. What we can do is prepare the outfield and pitches. We have already provided better grounds, wickets and 6 mm grass to first class games. This is not the end – we have supplied balls from brands like Duke, Kookaburra and SG which are commonly used in international cricket. And to attract players to first-class games, we have increased their match fees. Not only this, we have also increased the payment of umpires.
The other problem is that our domestic tournaments have not been competitive yet because our national team members are not there. Therefore, excellence is still to be seen in our domestic first-class cricket.
NA: BCB is a prosperous unit. Why are they not willing to invest in improving first-class cricket?
Sajjadul: Actually, I do not know the exact figure of assets of our cricket board. However, during my tenure as Chairman, I have focused on two issues; One of them is that we always expect higher standards from our cricketers. Like, we have been playing Test cricket for 24 years, right? But we expect them to play like a country which has been playing for 120 years. The country which has been playing for a hundred years is definitely more skilled than us. Investment does not necessarily imply financial activities. This also means providing other facilities.
Another limitation I have seen is that we do not have enough space to run multiple competitions in a calendar year. You will be surprised to know that the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB in Kolkata, India) has around a hundred venues to conduct its first-class and other domestic games, whereas we have only a few.
I would suggest that our organizers prepare a master plan and run their cricket. They must know what is necessary to do. Why am I saying this? Sometimes I face some emergent decisions, like organizing a T20 tournament before a global meet. My view is that things should not be this way. There should be a calendar for every competition. If you continue without a definite plan, nothing will work properly. More precisely, we need to develop a cricket culture to overcome our problems in the longer version of cricket.
As an organizer, I feel that without cricket culture, our fans also do not show interest in watching domestic cricket. They don’t even like to appear in international games. If there are no fans then the media will also not show willingness to cover those events. So we need all stakeholders to take cricket forward in the country.
NA: Is there a way to force national team members to play in the NCL like the West Indies have done?
Sajjadul: Why should we go so far? Recently in India, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were released from national contracts after refusing to play domestic cricket. Look, it is not that our players do not want to play domestic cricket. He is busy with national commitments for most of the year. He needs rest after playing those matches. But it is also true that if they play in domestic cricket, it will increase the competition. Many of them show a desire to play, but they can barely manage the schedule due to their national duties.
NA: Does BCB plan to increase the number of teams in the National Cricket League (NCL)? Why have Mymensingh and Dhaka universities not been included yet?
Sajjadul: Mymensingh’s inclusion is a matter of policy. Although this division has many famous cricketers and has a deep culture in cricket, the main reason for their exclusion is that they are not organizing district cricket leagues regularly. And Dhaka University has been excluded because the level of cricket in the institution has fallen a lot. If they can regain their former glory, we can think about them.
