BCB approves provision to introduce regional cricket associations

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has made two important amendments to its constitution on Tuesday, officially adding a provision for the creation of regional cricket associations and allotting the same number of councillorship for every club, bringing every club to the same pedestal.

Both amendments got approved during BCB’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at Hotel Sonargaon in the capital.

BCB president Nazmul Hassan had promised to decentralise cricket administration when he first rose to power back in 2013. But the board was unable to do so, due to there not being a provision in place for it in its constitution.

But after Tuesday’s amendments, there are no more barriers in front of the current board to fulfill its promise.

The BCB president spoke with the press after the AGM and said, “Till now, we were controlling everything from Dhaka. Now, the administrative power is going from Dhaka to divisional level. We had very little control at the district level. Now that the process has started, we will be able to do better in this aspect. Hopefully, we will begin the proceedings before our next board meeting.”

Eight regional cricket bodies will be created in Rajshahi, Sylhet, Mymenshingh, Barishal, Dhaka, Rangpur, Chattogram and Khulna division respectively. Councillors and board directors will be part of these regional bodies. Each regional cricket association will have 11-17 members, said the BCB president.

But question remains whether these divisional bodies will be able to function freely. As the BCB will decide who the members will be in these regional associations.

However, Nazmul Hassan said that the AGM councillors themselves asked the BCB to create the framework. He said, “For now, the BCB will prepare the preliminary guidelines. BCB has been given this responsibility.”

Moreover, from now on, each cricket club from Dhaka will get one councillorship. Previously, according to the 2013 revision of the BCB constitution, the six clubs that would qualify for the Super League stage of the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) would get two councillorships and the remaining six clubs of the top flight would get one.

Previously, 12 out of the 24 second division clubs that would qualify for their league’s Super League and eight of the 20 third division clubs that would make it to the Super League stage of their league would get one councillorship each.

Now, every club will get to have one councillor.

Every councillor can cast a vote in the BCB election. Previously, many lower tier clubs wouldn’t get this opportunity and the elite clubs would have a bigger role to play in the outcome of the election. But now each club will have an equal say.

The top DPL clubs didn’t take kindly to losing one councillorship. Nazmul explained their decision saying, “We wanted clubs other than Abahani and Mohammedan to emerge as powerful entities. Now, every club holds power. Abahani-Mohammedan don’t play the final every year. New teams are emerging. Prime Bank, Sheikh Jamal, Rupganj have been champions. This is what we wanted. Bangladesh cricket is at such a stage right now that no team should be miffed about getting one councillorship each. Everyone should be happy about it. The ones who were present (at the AGM) welcomed the change and expressed their delight. But the clubs who lost their extra councillorship naturally will not feel as happy.”

BCB also added two new departments named Bangladesh Tigers and Welfare. Bangladesh Tigers has already started its process. Welfare department has also been in operation for a long time. The two departments have now been brought under a framework to help in its smooth function.