New selectors soon for Bangladesh Cricket

The Faruque Ahmed-led selection panel finished their last assignment by submitting the academy squad to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on Sunday for the coming tour of Australia.

The Bangladesh National Cricket Academy team will leave Dhaka on August 23 to play six limited-overs, one three-day and a four-day matches against different opponents during their 18-day trip down under.

The contractual tenure of Faruque and one of his colleagues, Athar Ali Khan, has been extended for a period of one month by the new ad-hoc committee and that expires on August 31. Their job was extended keeping in mind the deadlines for selections of the Twenty20 and academy teams.

Speculations are however already on about the formation of the new selection committee and there are whisperings on few known faces like Minhazul Abedin, Aminul Islam, Naimur Rahman, Rafiqul Alam, but like many other burning issues the new board officials are yet to make up their mind in this regard.

The ad-hoc committee in its first meeting on August 1 formed a three-member selectors appointment sub-committee with Shafiqur Rahman Munna as its chairman and cricket operations committee chairman Gazi Ashraf Hossain Lipu as his deputy and Ishtiaq Ahmed as member.

The members of the committee are yet to meet formally, but Shafiqur Rahman Munna said that they are not completely out of touch as it's a very urgent issue.

"Definitely we will finalise the matter by August 30 because we don't want to keep this important positions vacant and you know our next tour of New Zealand is not far away. True, we are yet to make up our mind but what I can say is that we are thinking on it," said Munna yesterday.

Everybody has been curious about whether the new committee will go for a fresh selection panel. One of the members on the current committee, Akram Khan, was handed a two-year deal last June and he is expected to see out his contract that runs through May 2009.

Athar has hardly any chance to get another extension, but the main question that remains here is whether Faruque will be given another term.

"We don't want to dismiss anybody's chance because we will evaluate everything before naming the team. Our main objective is to give the job to suitable ones for the greater interest of the game. What I personally believe is that it would not be wise to consider the just-retired players for the posts because of their relationship with the current team members," explained the veteran organiser.

It seems that Faruque, who was appointed in the hot seat in August 2003, was also not uninterested to continue the job.

"I will seriously consider if I got the offer from the board but surely not for a long period of time," said Faruque.

The advisory committee of Ali Asghar brought the selection panel under payroll to bring accountability in the selectors' activities and it was learnt that this board wants to evaluate their works before making a decision.

What many believe that there was lack of brain storming in the selection process under the leadership of Faruque and this board is also seriously concern about the issue.

"Just as a coin has two sides they also have success and failure. So, we have to go through all the issues but the most important thing is that one should spend enough time for the job because they are paid," observed one member.