BPL in tatters but I can fix it as CEO: Shakib
Bangladesh Test and Twenty20 captain Shakib Al Hasan blasted Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) for its lacklustre planning and preparation for Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), claiming that the domestic 50-over tournament Dhaka Premier League (DPL) is held with better preparation than BPL, the country’s only franchise league.
Shakib made such scathing comments on Wednesday, just two days before the ninth edition of BPL commences, at the Gulf Oil Bangladesh office, where he acted as the ceremonial chief executive officer for a day in a promotional campaign.
At the event, Shakib was asked about what he would do if he was handed the responsibility to run BPL, to which the all-rounder had a blunt response, “If I was appointed as the CEO (of BPL), it wouldn’t take me too long to fix everything. It’ll take 1-2 months, tops.”
The 35-year-old held nothing back as he criticised the rushed approach to the tournament, allowing little time for franchises to form their teams and lambasted the BCB’s failure to take the tournament to all parts of the country.
“It (BPL) is in tatters. In comparison, the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) is held in a much more organised way. Because, the teams there get time to form their squads. They know what their team will be and prepare accordingly.
“There is no remote rural area in Bangladesh where cricket is not played. It’s not like the game is not popular. It’s a game loved by all in a country of 160-200 million. Claiming that there is no market for the game in the country is very disappointing, at least I don’t believe it.”
Shakib brought up Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor’s 2001 movie ‘Nayak: The real hero’ as an example, saying, “Have you seen the ‘Nayak’ cinema? One can do a lot in a single day. If a person is capable, he can do everything.”
In that movie, Anil was made the state minister for a day. In just one day Shivaji Rao, the character played by Anil in the movie, uprooted the roots of corruption.
Like Shivaji, Shakib is confident that he can fix the issues that are crippling BPL and that too in very quick time, “Everything will be scrapped, the draft will be held again, there will be an auction, the BPL will be held during an open window when the players will be free to take part, modern technology will be used, the broadcast will be better. There will be home and away venues.”
Decision Review System (DRS) technology will not be available for the group-stage of this year’s BPL and is expected to be added from the play-off stage.
Shakib thinks the reason behind DRS’ absence is BCB’s negligence and lack of intent, “Maybe the BCB don’t have the budget! If there was positive intent, I don’t see any reason why all of these things would get held up. The draft not happening three months before the tournament, there being no auctions, no DRS, squads not getting finalised two months before the tournament- I don’t see any reason for these things to happen.”
Shakib also criticised BCB’s decision to allow franchises fly in overseas players at any time of the tournament for whatever duration.
“One player comes in the squad one day, then disappears two days later. Nobody knows when which player will come and go.”
Unlike other T20 franchise leagues like the Indian Premier League (IPL), Big Bash League (BBL), Pakistan Super League (PSL), Caribbean Premier League (CPL) no one takes note of the performances in the BPL outside of Bangladesh.
Shakib blamed BPL’s poor marketing and failure to attract eyeballs for it.
“Keeping IPL aside, when a player performs at the Big Bash, PSL or CPL, he gets called up to his national team. Nobody outside of Bangladesh really watches BPL, so, they can’t really set a parameter, judge what the matches are like in BPL, is it a competitive tournament or not, whether the players performing here are any good. Till now, no one has thought of it like that. To be still stuck at this level is really disappointing.”