BCB opens domestic window

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) formed a 10-member committee for reviewing the domestic structure with former board general secretary Aminul Haque Moni named as its convener.

The members on the committee are Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury, Shafiq-ul-Haque, Roquibul Hassan, Aliul Islam, Shakil Kasem, Aminul Islam Bulbul, Enamul Hoque Moni, Lt. Col. M. A. Latif Khan (Retd.) and Gazi Ashraf Hossain.

"This committee will give a recommendation about how we can improve our domestic structure. You all know that the weakness of domestic cricket is hugely hampering our performance in the international level and that's why we felt the necessity of having a strong committee to find out a solution," said BCB's media committee chairman Ahmed Sajjadul Alam Bobby.

"They will give mid-term and long-term recommendations, but we are afraid that will not be able to follow their recommendation from this season," he added.

Harmer first on BCB’s list

The Bangladesh Cricket Board will resume the process of appointing the coach for the national team coach with Australian John Harmer first in line to make a presentation before officials on Wednesday.
Harmer, one of the three short-listed candidates for the post, which fell vacant in June following Dave Whatmore’s departure, is expected to arrive in Dhaka on the same day, said sources within the BCB.
The other two short-listed candidates – Australian Jamie Siddons and Zimbabwean Dave Houghton, will also be interviewed by September, said BCB officials. Former Zimbabwe captain and coach Houghton could be second person to be interviewed after Harmer, added officials.
However, a final decision in this regard is unlikely before the end of next month as the third candidate Siddons, who as of now is the first choice of the BCB officials, will not be available for the interview before the end of ICC Twenty20 World Cup.
Siddons, will be accompanying the Australian team, of which he is an assistant coach, in South Africa during the Twenty20 World Cup, which runs from September 11-24.
‘Australians are the firm favourite to win the tournament; naturally they expect to play in the final on September 24 in New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg. In that case we cannot interview him before the end of month. It may even go in October,’ said a BCB official asking not to be named.
The interim Board officials, who took over barely a month ago, managed to get in touch with Siddons only a few days ago after Mahbub Anam, the general secretary of the committee that government dissolved last month, extended his cooperation, sources said.
The new BCB officials had earlier put the search for a coach on hold as they had no contact details of the short-listed candidates. ‘Now we have a detailed profile of all three candidates,’ said an official.
The 65-year-old Harmer, first coach to be interviewed, has been working at the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy in Brisbane since 2003, according to BCB officials. Previously he was at the helm of the Australia and England women’s cricket teams.
Harmer led the Australia women’s cricket team to three World Cup finals in his eight years in charge of the squad from 1992-2000, winning the 1997 World Cup in India.
An Australian Level III coaching certificate holder, Harmer, has authored a number research works on cricket coaching and biomechanics, according to Cricinfo in his profile.

Just Academic

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) won many hearts when it signed a benchmark sponsorship deal with Grameenphone for building a National Cricket Academy (NCA).

Five months on, but unfortunately nothing has transpired in this very important task till today in terms of translating the dream into reality.

It was told by the immediate past office bearers of the board after signing a five-year deal with the cellular phone company on March 13 that their first target would be to build a two-storied building for the academy with all the necessary facilities in Mirpur, the home of Bangladesh cricket.

And the consultant agency, Bashat, had mentioned that they would need nine months to build the structure after the completion of the tender processes.

Forget any tender for the last five months the reality is that the board is still delving into an acceptable design.

Fingers however have been pointed towards the highly paid BCB's chief executive officer Mahmudur Rahman for the delay for his failure to coordinate everything for finishing the work as early as possible.

But like many other issues Rahman portrayed his helplessness.

He defended the delay by saying that they received the revised drawing and estimated budget from the consultant company just a few days back.

"We asked the consultant agency to revise the drawing and costing because we found their initial proposal too high and they gave it to me only ten days back. This is the main reason behind the unfortunate delay and you know during that time the board also went through a transition period," defended Rahman.

Money is however not at all a problem for the board when the sponsor company has agreed to give US dollars 1.5 lakh per year, which means the board would receive US dollar 7.5 lakh (about 5.25 crore Taka) in five years. And the fact is that they will need around Tk 2.5 crore to prepare the house according to the consultant agency.

The new chief of the game development committee Lt Col M Abdul Latif Khan (retd), however, was not ready to accept any excuse rather he got surprised by the holdup of a very important project.

"We desperately need the full-fledged academy but the most unfortunate thing is that nobody has taken the initiatives for the last five months to start the work. What I found is that nobody cared about the issue despite the company offering us handsome money," said an aggrieved Latif.

"Our board president (Chief of General Staff Maj Gen Sina Ibn Jamali) already talked with the NSC president (Army Chief Gen. Moeen U Ahmed) about the leasing of the Mirpur stadium for a certain period of time and hopefully it will be finalised within a short period of time. We will definitely start work for the academy by mid-September," assured the retired army man.

"I read all the papers about the academy and what I found that nobody has taken the initiatives to start the work. There is no scope to make any excuse for this delay. I talked with my president because it's a very important issue for us," he said.

Right at the moment the academy is operating from a rented house and the board are spending near about Tk 5 lakh per month for all the activities.

However the problem is that it can hardly fulfill the demand.

It was learnt that recently the board had to cancel an under-14 camp due to unavailability of a place for the player's accommodation and it's just one example of how desperate the need for a permanent establishment of the academy is.

No Sponsor Yet BCB names all 16 committees

A marathon meeting of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), the third of the ad-hoc committee, yesterday completed formation of its 16 standing committees.

Only the top two persons of the standing committees had been named after the board's first meeting and the complete committees feature cricket personalities like coach Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury (operations committee), former national cricketers Jahangir Shah Badshah (tournament committee), GS Hassan Tamim (game development committee), Selim Shahed (finance committee) and Tanjib Ahsan Saad (umpires' committee).

With more pending issues on the agenda, there was hardly any progress in matters like new sponsor of the national team and their new coach.

Media committee chairman Ahmed Sajjadul Alam Bobby, however, took a break from the meeting last night to inform reporters that the board expected to reach a concrete decision about a coach by early September.

"Whether we are to add more candidates to the short-list of three or not would be settled next month," told Bobby.

"We have also decided to stick to the plans of the last executive committee about domestic cricket but a committee will be formed with ex players, coaches and organisers to look after the pros and cons of the programmes. They will also try to give a long term strategic formula to improve the standard of domestic cricket," he added.

It was learnt that although no tender was submitted to sponsor the clothing of the Tigers, three different companies bade to become the national team's official sponsor after GrameenPhone's contract ended last July.

The board has yet to get a sponsor for the ICC Twenty20 World Championship also.

PCB completes dope tests

The Pakistan Cricket Board completed its out-of-competition dope tests on 26 leading players, including Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, almost a week before naming the final 15-man squad for September’s Twenty20 World Championship.
Sohail Salim, the PCB’s medical officer, said urine samples had been collected from all players featuring in the Karachi-leg of the training camp. The samples will be sent to a WADA-accredited laboratory in Malaysia.
‘All the samples have been collected and we hope to get the results of the tests in about a week’s time,’ Salim told the News.
Four players from the probables haven’t yet given samples as they are currently playing county cricket in England, though Salim said a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) representative will collect their samples on behalf of the board soon.
Results of the tests will be available with the board before the national selectors name the final squad on August 6, thus avoiding the situation that arose during the Champions Trophy last year when Shoaib and Asif were included in the squad only to pull out a day before the first match because their positive results came late. This is the third time that the board has opted for out-of-competition dope tests on the country’s leading players in less than a year.
The tests weren’t without controversy as it emerged later that the board may not have adhered strictly to WADA regulations during its testing, despite claims that its policy was now fully WADA-compliant.
Doubts were raised in a radio report because samples from some of the players were taken on Monday evening while others were asked to be available for the procedure on Tuesday. The WADA code says that an athlete must present himself for testing within one hour after being notified in writing.
The code reads: ‘The players have a maximum of one hour to present themselves at the Doping Control Room for testing. During this time, they will be free to attend any post-match commitments, such as a presentation or press conference, but they will always be accompanied (albeit discreetly) by Sampling Officers, including inside the dressing rooms. All Team Managers and the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit are aware of these protocols.’
Dr Danish Zaheer, a WADA accredited officer told Voice of America that if the one-hour notice protocol has been done away with, WADA can challenge the collection of players’ samples.

Emergency meeting of BCB Ad-hoc Executive Committee on Wednesday

The new President of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Maj. Gen. Sina Ibn Jamali awc, psc met the Chief Executive Officer BCB Mahmudur Rahman today (Monday) morning to be briefed on the immediate pending issues faced by the BCB.

The President has directed that an emergency meeting of the Board’s Ad-hoc Executive Committee will be held on Wednesday (01 August 2007) at 4pm at the BCB Management Office in Gulshan.

At this meeting the new committee will take decisions on some urgent pending matters iincluding the appointment of Coach, Physio and Team Operations Manager for the National Cricket Team and reactivation of the Standing Committees.

There will also be a discussion on the training camp of the National Team for the ICC Twenty20 Cricket World Cup and overall cricketing issues.