A piece of lost history
Mymensingh was always a step ahead of the country in terms of the forming of clubs and the introduction of tournaments, so the Bangladesh’s central region was once the hub of athletes, with the town’s third oldest outfit, Panditpara Athletic Club having a great contribution the production of national players, especially in cricket.
Panditpara AC was established in 1910 by the son of zaminder Shashi Kanta Aacherjee at a time when football and cricket were played across the Mymensingh region with teams from Kolkata often playing here against district teams as well as local teams before and after the nineteenth century.
Panditpara AC was founded in the early nineteenth century, 12 years after the foundation of Mymensingh Mohammedan SC, but ten years before Kolkata’s popular East Bengal Club. Mymensingh’s second-oldest club is Friends Eleven which was founded in 1901.
Panditpara AC is situated at the circuit house area -- which is also known as the club para -- and the club was named after the area where Shashi Kanta Aarcherjee lived. There is also a concept that Panditpara AC was established to counter Mymensingh Mohammedan SC, but there was no influence of sectarianism between the two clubs, rather they turned into archrivals on the fields of cricket and football like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal of Kolkata or Dhaka’s Mohammedan SC and Abahani.
So far it has been learnt that Bengal Gymkhana toured Dhaka and Mymensingh to play cricket in 1911 and Bengal Gymkhana were again invited by the Maharaja of Mymensingh to play cricket in 1916 and thus Mymensingh historically turned into one of the birthplaces of cricket in Bengal.
Mymensingh produced a lot of cricketers such as Indian players Fakharuddin, Mofizuddin, Prabin Kumar Sen, Ilias Uddin Ahmed, Dr Hafizur Rahman, Mahbubur Rahman Selim, Khairul, Siddique, Ram Chand Gowla, Dr Nurul Anwar, Kazi Mohammad Hasan, Saiful Islam, Sanwar Hossain, Abdul Majid. The pipeline has still not dried up, with current Bangladesh cricketers Mahmudullah Riyad and the promising Mosaddek Hossain all from there.
Famous Indian Test wicketkeeper Prabir Kumar, who played 14 Tests from 1948 to 1952 and stumped Australian legend Sir Donald Bradman, was a product of Panditpara AC. The club also produced Bangladesh batsman Mahmudullah Riyad. Sadeq, Sukumar, Muhammad Ali, Anwarul Amin Azhar, Alok Chakrabarti and Pika were also products of Mymensingh’s third-oldest club.
Fakharuddin and Ram Chand Gowala were the cricket coaches of Panditpara AC and made glorious contributions to cricket coaching for Mymensingh, a region which is now struggling in every sport as the century-old outfits have lost their colour.
“After the liberation, 72 cricketers from Mymensingh played for different clubs in Dhaka First Division Cricket League and there was a notion that the Dhaka cricket could not be held without cricketers from Mymensingh,” said Panditpara AC’s long-serving general secretary Faruque Hossain.
“The downturn in Mymensingh sports started in the ‘80s as the real organisers were kept away and we also were confined only into cricket in the late ‘80s though we also had a good record in football,” said 60-year-old Faruque.
Panditpara AC was the club that won the inaugural Club Cup Championship in 2006-07 and they also became champions several times in the Mymensingh cricket league, although it has been four years since their last win there.
“Other clubs are conducting cricket coaching commercially but we offer free cricket coaching on a small scale under the supervision of coach Kamaluzzaman Sadek bhai, but Mahmudullah Riyad emerged from our under-14 cricket camp,” said Faruque.
Another historical aspect of Panditpara is that, following the war for liberation, Bangladesh’s interim vice-president Syed Nazrul Islam was president of the club. Syed Ashraful Islam, Bangladesh’s current minister for public administration, and his younger brother Brigadier General (rtd) Safayet also played cricket for Panditpara AC.