Cricketers and cricket officials observed that money lured some Bangladeshi players to risk their careers on international and domestic circuits for the banned Indian Cricket League (ICL).
They were speaking at a roundtable titled 'Bangladesh Cricket: Steps Forward' organised by The Daily Star at its office yesterday.
"They have made many excuses but the cricketers should have had the courage to admit that money was the primary thing that tempted them," told former national captain and ex-chief selector Faruque Ahmed.
Faruque was referring to the 13 cricketers who joined the ICL under the banner of Dhaka Worriers last week.
"Some of them have even said they had problems with the board or the coach. But they should have raised these issues earlier.
"There was also talks of players joining the ICL last year when the rebel league began. But it did not materialise. I think the BCB [Bangladesh cricket Board] officials, who had hints of that also this time, did not take it seriously. They should have handled the situation better," added Faruque.
Ex-national skipper and currently BCB's chairman of cricket operations Gazi Ashraf Hossain, in reply, admitted that they knew 'something was going to happen'.
"But we kept in touch with the players and it never came to my mind that they would be joining ICL sacrificing their national careers," Ashraf said.
"For example, I was in constant touch with our former national captain Habibul Bashar. We were thinking about giving him a chance in the coming home series. So I had talks with him every other day on how he was training and preparing.
"You are supposed to trust everyone you work with. But I admit that I never realised what he was really thinking of. Moreover, we were very close in the negotiation of pumping more of our players to play in the Indian Premier League. But we might have been a bit late with that effort," said Ashraf adding that almost similar things happened in case of the others joining the ICL.
The focuses of the roundtable, however, were on infrastructure and planning, management, umpires, pitches and grounds, leadership, attitude and domestic cricket. The lively five-hour discussion was also attended by former BCB general secretary Mahbubul Anam, former national captains Roquibul Hassan, Aminul Islam, Naimur Rahman, chief selector Rafiqul Alam, current BCB officials Shafiqur Rahman, Shakil Kasem, Salim Shahed, coach Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury, international umpire Nadir Shah, CCDM secretary Mostafa Kabir and young organiser Syed Ali Asaf.
The Editor and Publisher of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam rounded off the discussion with a vote of thanks to everyone and invited the audience to use the newspaper as a platform for the betterment of country's sports and cricket in particular since it is a now a national obsession.