77 spectators ejected from the stadium for betting during the BPL
Illegal betting, which claimed a life when a BBA student was killed by thugs after he tried to stop the unlawful practice in his area in Badda earlier this month, has had an impact on the Bangladesh Premier League governing council.
The member secretary of the BPL governing council IH Mallick informed today evening that they have caught a total of 77 people involved in betting at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium during the day's BPL matches and ejected them from the venue. 65 of them are locals while 12 are foreigners, 10 of whome are from India. However, Mallick added that there is not much for the BCB to do in regards to eradicating the problem apart from creating awareness as betting is a huge racket throughout the country that only the law enforcement agencies can stop.
"Apart from creating awareness we don't have much to do as we are trying to caution spectators during the games through announcements on the giant screen. But we have nothing to do about the betting which is taking place all over the country as it's a matter for law enforcement agencies," said Mallick during a press conference in the evening. "We don't have any specific law about betting in our country but we do have our anti-corruption and security unit in the stadium during matches. We are however unable to take legal action against them."
This inability to take legal action was reflected in the words of Mirpur Thana's additional deputy commissioner Jashim Uddin, who told The Daily Star that he was unaware of any such developments.
Meanwhile, the BPL governing council announced that they are going to introduce another T20 competition soon which will involve just local players to provide them a platform.
According to Mallick they are willing to organise the tournament on a regional basis and not under any franchise.
"We are happy the way BPL has gone so far but we did think of improving the performance of local players and we have planned to organise a T20 tournament under the BPL governing council very soon. The tournament will be played only among the local players and there will be four to five teams," he said.
However the dates of the tournament are yet to be finalised. Mallick informed that the tournament will be a short one, with a span of five to seven days, which will be decided keeping the availability of the national players in mind.