Shakib’s concern over lower-tier corruption
Corruption in the lower-tier of Bangladesh cricket is not something new as this issue has been raised a number of times following different incidents in the past. Biased umpiring, alleged favouritism and even buying and selling of points is a common issue in first, second and third division cricket and has spread like cancer in the past few years.
For the development and improvement of the National team's performances, it is very crucial that the pipeline from which the players emerge, is kept clean. Just as recent as in January of this year, a second division team, Dhanmondi Progoti Sangha refused to play their game against Azim Cricket Club at BKSP-3 ground in protest of alleged biased umpiring. Progoti Sangha had called their players off the field after the umpires had given three wrong leg-before decisions, one of which was given despite the ball being hit way above the waist.
Before that, Purbachol Sporting Club were also accused of being favoured by umpires against Amber Sporting Club. With these two incidents just being the tip of the iceberg, there have been numerous occasions in the past when the nation's lower tier cricket has seen many shameful incidents take place.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) have only made promises to take strict action in such cases however, their words never materialised and corruption in the lower-tiers kept on spreading like wildfire. There have also been murmurs that it is one of the board members that acts as the kingpin of such operations. And thus it is not a surprise that the BCB's promises have never turned into action till now.
Bangladesh cricket was shaken to its core when the national players decided to go on strike after putting forth an 11-point demand in front of the media at the Academy Ground in Mirpur yesterday. And although the cricketers did not put the issue of alleged favouritism and biased/poor umpiring at the grassroots level in their demand list, they surely did not forget to mention it.
Bangladesh T20I and Test captain Shakib Al Hasan spoke about poor umpiring and the alleged favouritism in lower-tier cricket and emphasized on the need for these issues to be addressed.
"The players sometimes get to know about the result of the match even before stepping onto the field. This is really disappointing and needs to be fixed because it concerns the career of a player," said Shakib to the media yesterday.
The message from Shakib and Co was clear, that if the country's cricket is to have a future, then the corruption at the base needs to be wiped clean first. However, it now remains to be seen whether the BCB will take action or will even this message fall on deaf ears just as it was in the past.
"A player can get dismissed off a good delivery but if that player gets out because of two or three bad decisions from umpires and then go on to get out to a good delivery in the next game then the career of that player kind of ends at that moment. If we want players to emerge then we need to make changes here and develop this field." concluded Shakib.