Dhaka Premier Cricket League Preview
The smaller of big names
The Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League is not just about Abahani and Mohammedan and the money they spend, the country’s most popular cricket competition also accommodates diverse teams, some of whom hardly have the club structure these days.
A handful of clubs however still follow the age-old club culture with players living in the club’s quarters. Surjo Torun goes along these lines, though their players are housed in the club president’s residence, as the club doesn’t have a cricket ground.
They will practise at the Dhanmondi Cricket Academy (DCA) ground on Road 4 and according to club official Tanjeeb Ahsan Saad, a former national cricketer, the club is targeting a better finish than last year.
“We don’t want to go through what happened last year,” said Saad about Surjo Torun’s direction this year after they were almost relegated last season, winning only the final game against Khelaghar.
This year the club has retained the services of Junaed Siddiqui, also adding the in-form left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak as one of their three pool players (Sohrawardi Shuvo being the other).
“Apart from the pool players we have Rajin Saleh, Anisur Rahman and Imtiaz Ahmed as well as pacemen Shafaq Al Zabir and Sajidul Islam,” added Saad, who informed that they had a budget around Tk 70 lakh for the season.
Similar to Surjo Torun is Orient Sporting Club, the Lalbagh-based team that got promotion after two years. According to team manager Jubair Kabir Chowdhury, the club suffers from the usual neighbourhood-based club problems.
“Everything depends on money. We run a small team and our goal is to survive in the League. We can’t afford national pool players so we have opted for mainly those players who gained us the promotion,” said Jubair, adding that the club usually goes for high-scoring First Division batsmen and also a few from the locality.
They were runners-up in the second tier last year, finishing behind Prime Doleswar who were the runaway champions. Sponsored by Prime Group, the team is situated by the Doleswar river where the players practise at the high school ground and are housed in a one-storied building.
“Our target will primarily be to stay in top flight and then push for the Super Six stage,” said joint secretary Mushtaq Hossain, who informed that Prime Group DMD Abul Bashar Shiplu is the general secretary of the club. “We are in league cricket for the past four years, two each in Second and First Divisions,” added Mushtaq. From the national pool, Doleswar has acquired Rubel Hossain and Nazmul Hossain.
BKSP however breaks the mould of clubs like Orient, Doleswar and Surjo Torun as the national sports institute has no club structure to speak of. “Our students will play, some of whom are from the Under-19 teams. They have a six-year contract with us so all of the players are students of BKSP,” said coach Akhinuzzaman Rusho.
“Our target will be to reach the Super Sixes and take it from there. We know what sort of opponent we’ll be facing, but we should not care much about it. We are mostly focused on our game,” he said.
