Dhaka – Former President of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP, on Wednesday said the BCB should accept the logical demands of the cricketers to resolve the present crisis. “The BCB is the guardian of Bangladesh cricketers. But they made some mistakes. The board should act like the guardian and accept their [cricketers’] logical demands,” he said while talking to reporters after a programme at a city hotel.
The former BCB chief further said, “They [cricketers] should not have placed their demands through a press conference. The board also did the same mistake. They should have talked to the cricketers over their pay hike.”
He expressed the hope that the board will resolve the crisis and cricketers will return to the field as soon as possible. “I hope Bangladesh will make their upcoming India tour in time.”
On Monday, some 60 top cricketers of the country announced to boycott all cricketing activities at home and aboard if the BCB did not meet their 11-point demand.
On Wednesday, they placed a 13-point fresh demand, saying they were ready to sit with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to discuss their demands.
On behalf of the cricketers, Supreme Court lawyer Barrister Mustafizur Rahman Khan came up with the information while briefing reporters after a meeting of the cricketers at a Gulshan hotel in the evening.
With their previous 11 demands, the crickets added two more — sharing the revenue the BCB generates and implementing all the demands for women cricket as well.
The other demands include immediate resignation of the president and secretary of Cricket Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB), returning to the previous model of Dhaka League, and the BPL from the next year, increasing the match fee in the first-class cricket, hiking the salaries of the national cricketers, local coaches, physio, trainers and groundsmen, arranging more domestic cricket events, fixing stable domestic calendar, clearing cricketers’ dues for the Dhaka League and ensuring cricketers’ opportunities to play more foreign leagues.UNB
