Chaos in Sylhet cricket-2
From Ranatunga to high school kids: The tragic decline of Sylhet League
Professional cricketers in Sylhet boycotted the Sylhet Premier Cricket League. They said they would end their boycott if the relegation system gets introduced in the league. But the Sylhet District Sports Association didn’t accept their demand and instead held a lacklustre league without any top players. The conflict between two parties has sent Sylhet district’s cricket into disarray. This is the second and final part of a two-part series on the situation–
Whenever a bunch of Sylhet cricketers get together for a chat, one match often comes up in the discussions. It was a match between Gymkhana and Anirban in the 1988 Sylhet Cricket league.
In front of a packed crowd, Anirban posted 212 batting first. That match ended in a tie. But that’s not why the match is considered memorable.
The reason why that match is still in discussions is because that day Sri Lanka’s World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga played for Anirban. There were no overseas cricketers in the Gymkhana team, but national team cricketer Golam Faruk played for them.
Later, Sri Lankan players like Romesh Kaluvitarana and Ashoka de Silva also played in Sylhet. So have Indian cricketers Raman Lamba and Ajay Sharma. Players of the Bangladesh national cricket team used to regularly play in the Sylhet league. Not just Golam Faruk, former captain Gazi Ashraf Hossain, Minhajul Abedin, Aminul Islam, Akram Khan, all have vivid memories of the Sylhet league. The pay was good, the cricket was very competitive.
Enamul Haque Jr, Rajin Saleh, Alok Kapali, Tapash Baisya– all of these Sylhet cricketers have played in the Sylhet league before representing the country in the national team. In the last few years, many cricketers from Sylhet have made it into the national team. But other than Khaled Ahmed, all of them have come from either the BCB’s age-level structure or from BKSP. There has hardly been anyone in recent years who has climbed the steps of club cricket in Sylhet before making it into the national team.
Not just in the national team, the Sylhet divisional team is struggling to find players for the National Cricket League (NCl) as well. They have been starved for batters for years. After the retirements of Rajin Saleh and Alok Kapali, the recent Test debutant Zakir Ali is their only big hope in the batting department. Batter Jaker Ali could also be mentioned alongside Zakir.
A good group of fast bowlers has somehow kept Sylhet in the first tier of NCL. To solve the batsman crisis, Narayanganj’s Amit Hasan has been playing for Sylhet for the past few years. No one has come up from the local league who can become the beacon of hope for Sylhet in the batting department.
Everyone knows why– the path for new players to rise up the ranks from the local league has been closed down. A few individuals control the local league. Every club is under the same umbrella in Sylhet, much like it is in the Dhaka Premier League (DPL). That’s why, there is no competition in the league and no relegation. That’s why new players are not emerging from playing in the league run by Sylhet District Sports Association (DSA). Even though the league is in tatters, the officials of the DSA are making good money from running academies utilising cricket’s popularity.
Take Green Sylhet Academy for example. It’s the biggest cricket academy in Sylhet. It’s owned by Sylhet DSA general secretary Mahiuddin Ahmed. BCB appointed coach Rana miah is entrusted to coach nearly 800 budding cricketers.
There are allegations that if one enrolls in this academy, they are certain to be picked by a team in the Sylhet league. As there is no relegation, the club’s are handing all responsibility to the academy, without any care. For this reason, even 13-14 year-old boys are now getting to play at the highest level of district cricket. In the 15-player squads of all clubs, 7-8 players and sometimes 10-12 players are Under-14 or Under-15 level cricketers.
Sylhet Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB) and Sylhet Cricketers Association president and former national team cricketers Enamul Haque Jr posed a question to coach Rana– How can he do something so unethical despite being a BCB appointed coach?
Enamul, who was the hero of Bangladesh’s maiden Test win, hasn’t found the answer yet, “How could he do this? If he was a little firmer, our club cricket would not have been in this state.”
Rana Mia, however, rejected the allegation, “I run three clubs. Cricketers of my academy play in every club. There are 10 clubs in the league. Does that mean I run all 10 clubs?”
In those clubs, where once star cricketers from home abroad used to play, high school kids are running amok.
*This report appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ashfaq-Ul-Alam Niloy