While it appeared that the club crisis was at an end after Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis (CCDM) held a meeting with councillors from the revolting clubs on Thursday, even setting a tentative date for the start of the Dhaka Premier League (DPL), it now seems like there are a few loose ends that need to be tied up.
Two out of the 12 DPL clubs -- Legends of Rupganj and Brothers Union -- did not attend Thursday’s meeting, where the first week of May was floated as a probable starting date.
However, now Rupganj’s councillor Lutfar Rahman Badal appears to be against haphazardly playing the league on a short notice while Brothers Union officials are yet to clarify the club’s stance.
“I am abroad right now. I saw everything but there is a need for preparation regarding everything. It’s not like you can just say today that let’s play and then you start playing tomorrow all of a sudden. The state the country, the financial issue, after considering everything, I will take my decision,” Badal told The Daily Star on Friday.
“Why is the league taking place suddenly? There is a window for everything in cricket. This year the [DPL] window was in February and it has passed. My understanding is that they are holding it in a ‘crisis-management basis’. They can do that, of course, but we will be taking our decision,” he said, adding that he knew that as per the DPL bylaws, non-participation would lead to relegation.
Badal also criticised the culture of rushing to start a league and spoke about where the last two boards headed by former players Faruque Ahmed and Aminul Islam Bulbul fell short.
“Cricket board is like a parliament, you need to have policy-making capacity to run it. If those in charge have never been involved in policy-making, how will the cricket board create policies?... We don’t have that culture and that’s why you see that the BPL is being played within a month’s notice and the DPL in two days’ notice,” he said.
A Brothers Union official said that their representative will “let the board know of the club’s decision”, when asked if they were in favour of playing the league.
CCDM officials, however, claimed that they have no information regarding any club’s unwillingness to play.
Mohammedan representative Ziaur Rahman Topu said the clubs were not haphazardly starting the league, saying, “We are not hurrying. There is 20-22 days before start of league.”
A.R Mallick, representative of Dhanmondi Sports Club, said he was not aware of any disagreements, adding, “We usually always play in March and there were talks of starting on April 22 or 25. But since the New Zealand T20Is end on May 2, we decided to hold the league after that.”
Rupganj councillor Badal had boycotted last year’s Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) election at the last moment and yesterday, he told this newspaper that election irregularities led him to boycott.
However, organisers of other clubs who had also boycotted the polls suggested Badal stepped away at the insistence of the then sports adviser Asif Mahmud.
Sources also claim that Rupganj had signed contracts with players and officials for this season but have revoked those contracts.
While the expectation was that after the ouster of the Bulbul-led board, the club crisis would end, it now appears there are other issues at to resolve before holding the DPL.
