The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Saturday denied that it has passed a resolution to vote in favour of a draft proposal that would effectively strip the country of Test status on Thursday’s board meeting. It was widely reported that the draft proposal, forwarded by the so-called ‘big three’ India, Australia and England, was endorsed in the BCB meeting by 20:3 votes, sparking sharp reactions among the cricket fans.
If the proposal receives final approval at the ICC board meeting this week in Dubai, it would relegate Bangladesh to the Intercontinental Cup, depriving the country of any Test cricket action until 2019 at the earliest.
‘It has come to the media that in the meeting on Thursday, we voted by 20:3 votes in favour of the resolution. In fact this is not true,’ BCB media committee chairman Jalal Yunus told reporters at his office on Saturday.
‘I am saying this officially. The voting on that day was not about this resolution. The voting was on strategic issues that we don’t want to share with the media.
‘The directors were asked to give their opinion on strategic issues, then some voted in favour while some voted against,’ added Jalal, without elaborating the strategic points.
‘In the draft resolution there were two components, one was a financial or commercial issue plus governance and another issue was a plan to downgrade Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the second tier,’ he said.
‘After a discussion, I can say that all 23 gave their opinion against going down to the second tier and this is the only truth. About the first component, which was on a financial matter, we think that we should discuss it with the other countries.’
Jalal, however, had no explanation about some comments made by BCB president Nazmul Hasan after Thursday’s board meeting.
Nazmul mentioned that under the current circumstances, he does not see Bangladesh improving their ranking to eight in the next 10 years. He suggested that it would, therefore, be better for Bangladesh to try their luck in the Intercontinental Cup, the four-day version of the ICC trophy.
Nazmul’s comments clearly indicated that he is in favour of a ‘big three’ proposal. The comments also suggested that the BCB president had the mandate from his board directors to vote in favour of the proposal.
‘[Nazmul] was just talking about the consequences,’ Jalal said in a feeble defense of the BCB president. ‘That was not the official decision of that board meeting. It was a conversation between the media persons and the president.
The BCB spokesperson cleared the smoke minutes before a protest by cricket fans against their move in Shahbag.
Hundreds of cricket fans gathered at Shahbag in the afternoon to protest against the reported BCB position.
The supporters, some of whom painted their bodies in a Tiger’s colour, carried placards, some of which read ‘cricket is business to you, but oxygen to us,’ and ‘say no to “big three”.’ Many aged cricket fans also joined in the protest rally in front of National Museum.
-With New Age input
