NCL's U-turn

The Bangladesh Cricket Board's (BCB) intentions of hosting the 14th National Cricket League (NCL) along a franchise-based system has taken a U-turn of sorts after BCB officials, in a last-minute change, decided that the league which is scheduled to begin on October 20, would take place in its regular format.
The BCB tournament committee, however, stated that they will organise another four-day tournament, after the league, with four franchises. "The National Selectors will make a pool of 80 players, based on their performances in the league. These 80 players will then contest a tournament that will have four franchised-based teams," said Gazi Ashraf Hossain, chairman of the tournament committee of the BCB.
The tournament, which aims to fulfil BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal's wish of hosting a franchised-based competition, will be cramped between the upcoming series against the West Indies in December and the lucrative Bangladesh Premier League T20, which is scheduled to begin on January 17, 2013.
A league based on a franchise system promised to bring about merits but the board failed to address the various intricate details that eventually compelled them to change their plans. "We cannot conduct the national league in a similar format (franchise-based) because there was a conflict of interest between the divisions and the franchisees regarding the authority over the teams," explained Ashraf.
According to BCB officials, Prime Bank Foundation and Walton Hi-tech Ltd, two organisations that had earlier received the franchisee rights for two NCL teams, will now be given the choice to own two teams in the newly planned franchise-based tournament. "There are still a lot of decisions to be made regarding the tournament. The four teams might represent four different zones of the country. The competition will also have a special focus on players of 25 years or less, since we want them to be groomed properly," said Ashraf.
Meanwhile, the NCL has gone back to square one and will be based on last year's rules and regulations. It'll take place with eight teams and the divisional players will be selected based on a pool of cricketers presented by the national selectors. The league, however, will only go through one round, i.e. each team will play seven matches and will face each other for only one four-day match.
The single-round league will also witness a change in the points system with the number of bonus points expected to be reduced as compared to last year. "Since the league will be played for a single round, we want to put more weight on victories rather than the bonus points. Last year many teams took false advantage of the bonus point system and we don't' want a repeat of that,"said Hafiz Joardar, member and organising secretary of BCB's tournament committee. The players' match fee will be Tk 20,000, which is a slight increase as compared to last year's 'first-round' fee of Tk 15,000.
The BCB's decision to conduct the NCL without any franchises has also put paid to the possibility of hosting day-night matches in the league. The board had earlier decided to conduct two day-night games -- the first match and the finals of the league.
The national players are expected to play at least two games in the league before they get busy with the series against the West Indies, as the second four-day game is scheduled to take place between Nov 2 to Nov 5. However, certain players have already asked for special permission from the BCB physio to not participate in the league. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, who is still gradually recovering from the various operations that he has had, according to sources, is one of the players asking to be excused.