The Bangladesh Cricket Board responded to the call of national skipper Mushfiqur Rahim by giving him a fresh appointment up to ICC 2015 World Cup at the meeting of its board of directors at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday. Mushfiq, whose present term ends in December, earlier said that whoever is given the captaincy he must be given it for a long-term so that he can make a plan of his own.
His statement, which came immediately after he successfully led Bangladesh to 3-0 win against New Zealand, was welcomed by many cricket officials and the BCB did not take too long to reward him.
Mushfiq took over the captaincy after a disastrous tour in Zimbabwe in 2011 which ended the tenure of Sakib al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal as captain and vice-captain.
Barring an exception in Zimbabwe earlier this year Mushfiq did a fair job, which had prompted the then BCB cricket operations chief to ask him not to worry about captaincy.
‘We will retain him as captain as long as he wants,’ Enayet Hossain Siraj, the head of BCB cricket operations, had told reporters. The newly elected BCB committee in just their second meeting confirmed the appointment, making him the first captain in many days to get such a long duration.
Though Mushfiq was retained as captain by the BCB, it has yet to take any decision about his deputy Mahmudullah, whose term also ends in December. Mahmudullah has already lost his place in the Test squad and his position in the one-day side is also less than secured.
‘We will take the decision about the vice-captain later,’ said BCB president Nazmul Hasan after the meeting.
Like the vice-captain of the national side the BCB is also undecided over the next national chief selector, a position that fell vacant after former national captain Akram Khan resigned to take up his responsibility as director.
‘Lot of names came up regarding the new chief selector and the selection committee,’ said Nazmul.
‘Among them Faruk Ahmed got the support of most of the directors as chief selector. Some suggested whether we can think of making Minhajul Abedin or Habibul Bashar chief selector. The name of Khaled Mashud also cropped up,’ he said.
The BCB also did not make any decision regarding its two vice-presidents, who will be elected from among the 26 directors. ‘We have asked the interested candidates to submit their names and if there are several candidates we will hold an election on December 4.’
In the meeting, the BCB confirmed a grant of Tk 35 lakh for each of the six Dhaka Premier League clubs and Tk 25 lakh each for the other six clubs.
This was something the BCB officials had promised during their election campaign to woo the clubs for their support.
Among the other significant decisions, the BCB proposed to hold a Twenty20 tournament in December to give the players some practice ahead of the busy international schedule.
‘Our main target is World Cup so we decided to organise a Twenty20 tournament involving four zonal teams. Players like Tamim Iqbal and Sakib a Hasan need to play as they failed to participate in the league,’ said Nazmul.
The TV rights issue was also raised at the meeting and the BCB decided to go for a long-term deal only after the home series against Sri Lanka in January-February.
The meeting was told that there will be no complimentary tickets available for the ICC World Twenty20 as the tickets were taken by the International Cricket Council.
‘ICC will give us $2 million as gate money, so they will not distribute any free ticket. Everyone has to buy it,’ he said.
The Board approved the appointments of national women’s team head coach Shane Alan Deitz and physio Amardeep Sidhu until the completion of the ICC World Twenty20.
Mehedi Hasan Miraj and Jashim Uddin have been named captain and vice-captain respectively of the Bangladesh Under-19 team for the home series against the West Indies Under-19 side next month.
The BCB also decided to donate Tk 5 lakh to the recently deceased former cricketer Sheikh Mohammad Salahuddin.
-With New Age input
