Off-season woes of forgotten first-class cricketers

In November last year, pacer Mehedi Hasan Rana returned to competitive cricket after a two-year hiatus due to injury through first-class competition National Cricket League (NCL). The pacer made his mark immediately as he claimed 19 wickets in two matches and received player-of-the-match awards in both games for Khulna Division.

He then featured for the same division in the inaugural NCL T20 competition, represented Dhaka Capitals in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), and Agrani Bank Cricket Club in the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) respectively.

However, after the season ended, Rana, one of the 100 male cricketers who are under Bangladesh Cricket Board's (BCB) first-class contract, was not included in any BCB teams and had to individually prepare for the upcoming domestic season, which will start with NCL T20 on September 14.

"After the last season, I took one month off to recover. In the following three months, I personally worked with BCB physio Yakub bhai [Chowdhury Dalim] in Dhaka as I was not part of any BCB teams such as the HP Unit or Bangladesh Tigers," the 28-year-old pacer told The Daily Star recently.

Another first-class contracted cricketer, who lives outside Dhaka and has not been part of any BCB pipeline teams for years, detailed the challenges players face while trying to train in divisional areas during the off-season.

"We don't get any practice facilities from the BCB. Usually, we practise in nearby clubs during off-season, we bear the cost ourselves. We also have to take permission from many places to use the wickets. If we ask for 10 days, we get permission for only a day," the cricketer, requesting anonymity, told The Daily Star.

"Recently they have permitted first-class players to use indoor facilities and the wickets. Some of us went for practice in the last few days and we were allowed to use the indoor facilities. But I don't know whether it will continue.

"We worked hard throughout the year and also performed well whenever we got the opportunity. But only some selected players get the facilities by rotation. Once I asked a selector and he told me that as they have invested a lot on a player, they could not drop him only after a year. Their thinking is that if they pick one player, whether he plays well or poorly, he will remain in the team," he added.

In recent times, some senior cricketers have been flying to countries like the USA, the UK and Australia after the domestic season in Bangladesh and one of the main reasons for it is over there, they get better practice facilities and match practice.

"Over there, we get three to four matches weekly. We play against different clubs… We get to play with the duke ball. It's good for preparation as in Tests and in first-class cricket in Bangladesh, we use duke balls too," said a senior cricketer.

According to a BCB official, around of 33-34 cricketers trained in separate Bangladesh Tigers camps so far this year. Meanwhile, a total of 28 cricketers recently completed a two-month training camp as part of the High Performance Unit in Chattogram.

This leaves around 63 first-class contracted cricketers of the BCB who played in the domestic season but were not part of these teams or the national side. Hence, these cricketers had to come up with individual plans and had to toil hard to find practice facilities during off-season.

Currently, 100 first-class cricketers in three different categories – A, B, and C—get TK 35,000, TK 30,000 and TK 25,000 per month respectively as salary from the BCB. Their salary was increased by TK 5,000 recently although they are yet to be paid the new sum.

"As we are getting paid by the BCB, they should take few more measures to monitor our work. Those of us who aren't part of any BCB teams, can't work on our fitness to the level of those who are. If the BCB can hold two camps for us during the off season, I think it will do us good," Rana said.

"It will be good for us if indoor and outdoor facilities are improved in every division. They can also prepare separate wickets for us for year-long preparation," he added.

When contacted, BCB's tournament committee chairman Akram Khan accepted their limitations but also asked the players to act responsibly during off-season.

"At one time, we hardly had any playing fields, but we were developing gradually. Now, we have facilities available. It's the players' responsibility to work on their fitness and practice individually. If they want to depend totally on the cricket board and not do training and fitness work, they might lose their place in the team," Akram said.