The cheques that the former state minister for youth and sports, Ahad Ali Sarkar, had provided to the cricketers as cash incentive have been dishonoured by the bank, said cricketers and Bangladesh Cricket Board sources on Saturday. Ahad, who was replaced by Mujibul Haque in a reshuffle of the cabinet this week, handed over the cheques amounting to Tk 35 lakh to 16 cricketers on November 16.
Ahad had announced the awards on differnet ocassions but did not make any serious attempt to pay them the prize money, drawing severe crictisism from the players and the media.
The cricketers were stunned when they were told that there was no money in the account, though they did not want to make any public comment regarding it.
‘Probably there was some problem so I was told to collect it next week,’ off-spinner Sohag Gazi, who was given Tk 3 lakh, told New Age on Saturday.
The cricketers are not new to this kind of experience as it was quite commom in the Bangladesh Premier League, but it was beyond their imagination that the same thing could happen to a cheque provided by none other than the state minister himself.
The flabbersghasted cricketers contacted the BCB and was finally promised that the money would be deposited to their account next week.
‘The money was being transferred from the main sector to a sub-sector and that is why it took the players some time to encash it. It was purely a communication gap,’ National Sports Council secretary Sibnath Halder told New Age on Saturday.
‘We will sort it out at the earlier possible time. There is no other issue,’ he said.
-With New Age input
