All the power, very little pride
As a rule the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) should dictate terms regarding all cricketing affairs in the country. But when it comes to the Dhaka Premier Cricket League, the game's governing body unfortunately assumes the role of a subordinate to the mighty clubs.
The events surrounding this year's league, currently the lone 50-over competition in the country, has painted a sordid picture of cricket in the country. This has been a perennial cat-and-mouse game between the clubs and the board every season.
Every season the clubs seem to come up with ways to hamper the progress of the competition. This season, they said that they will not play the league without the national players, which delayed the start of the league. Then they said that they do not want to play under the old payment system, which led the board to come up with a new payment plan, after which the clubs decided that they want to devise their own payment scheme.
True, once club cricket was the main attraction and the devoted club officials played a big role in keeping the game alive in the country. Due credit must be given to them for the progress of cricket but the reality is that those golden days are gone. Times have changed but unfortunately we have persisted with the old, often flawed, way of conducting domestic cricket.
Even today it is the club officials who dictate terms on how the country's most popular game will be run. And now the clubs are also claiming much bigger stakes with demands to double their councillorship rights. This should not have been the case but still it is happening as the decentralisation of cricket is a distant dream. If not their professional obligation, then it is a moral obligation for the clubs to ensure their smooth participation in the league. The formation of their own teams before the league season begins is now their only contribution to cricket -- a contribution of diminishing importance, in an expanding Bangladeshi cricket horizon, which has allowed them disproportionate influence.
The most pathetic and shameful fact is that the board has been paying money to the clubs as a 'grant' to participate in the league. This season, that grant will be almost double that of the last season if the board is able to host the league at all this year. It is simply a ridiculous state of affairs.
We never hear ideas about how the clubs can make the tournament more attractive and commercially viable; instead they only create problems as the season approaches.
The board however cannot shy away from its responsibility of making sure that the 50-over competition is run in the proper way. And if they have to grant money to the clubs to get the league off the ground, it stands to reason that the BCB be allowed to run it on their own terms. In that case they must think about how they can make the National Cricket League's one-day format a competitive one that can fulfil the needs of the players. Ceding the high ground to the short-sighted clubs is certainly not the way.
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