|| CF  Correspondent ||

Bangladesh's cricketers have decided not to participate in any cricket activity for the foreseeable future until their demands for the improvement of cricket in the country are met. The immediate impact of their action will be on the National Cricket League, currently in progress, the training camp for next month's tour of India, and possibly the tour itself.

Veteran all-rounder Naeem Islam started the announcement, saying, “W have some demand to share today. We don’t get the respect that we deserve. At the same time, the association we have - the Cricket Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB)- is not working in our favor. So as our first demand, we are asking to resign the president and secretary of CWAB in immediately. After their resignation, we, the cricketers, will select who will take over the CWAB.”

Mahmudullah Riyad came up with the second demand, “You know the current situation of the Dhaka Premier League. We have been expressing our discontent for a long time. We get a very low amount as our remuneration from the a league. We used to contact the club in our own way previously. Now, our second demand is to go back to the previous model of the Dhaka league.”

Mushfiqur Rahim, the former national captain announced the third demand, “Our third demand is about Bangladesh Premier League which is scheduled in a new model this year. We respect the model that BCB has taken. But we want the previous model of BPL back next year. At the same time, we are asking to make the remuneration of the local players balanced with the foreign cricketers. If you look at the other foreign leagues, cricketers can decide their own grade in the draft. We are also seeking this in BPL.”

Bangladesh Test and T20Is captain Shakib announced the fourth demand, “Match fee for the First-class cricket should be increased to one lakh (BDT), which is now 35 thousand only, this is our fourth demand. At the same time, the salary of First-class cricketers also should be increased by 50 per cent. A First-class cricketer gets only 1500 taka as the daily allowance. I don’t think this is enough for a cricketer in order to get a healthy lifestyle. At the same time, we are demanding to increase the travel allowance. We will be happy if BCB ensures the air tickets for travelling for the First-class cricketers around the country.”

Enamul Haque Jnr, the hero of Bangladesh’s first Test win, came up with the number six demand, “BCB should increase the number of the cricketers in the national central contract. If you look at the world cricket arena, there are more players in the central contract. At the same time, the salary of the national cricketers should be increased, which is stuck on the same amount for three years.”

Tamim Iqbal, the national opener, came up with the seventh demand, “We have to respect the local coaches, physios, trainers and groundsman. They get really a little amount of salary at the end of the month.”

The eighth demand is about increasing domestic cricket events. Anamul Haque Bijoy unveiled the demand, “We play only a 50-over event - the Dhaka League. At the same time, we play a 20-over event - BPL. We are now demanding more domestic events.”

The ninth demand was put up by Nurul Hasan. “ There should be a fixed calendar of our domestic cricket so that we can take preparation for the whole year,’’

The ninth demand was put up by Junaed Siddique- We must get the money of BPL and DPL on a specific time. Like the 10 teams have paid their remuneration in the DPL but Brothers is yet to clear 40 percent of their dues. We have gone to the board several times and as a national cricketer we don’t think we deserve this kind of treatment. It looks odd we hope that we get paid at the right time.

Forhad Reza came up with the 11 the point where he stated that players should be allowed to play more than two franchise-based league.

“ We have seen there is a rule in place that suggests a player cannot take part in more than two franchise-based league. But if there is no national duty players should be allowed to play in the lable franchise-based tournaments as we can learn a lot from there.

Later Shakib ended the demand session saying

 ‘’We are talking about domestic cricket. We all know about our first division, second division cricket and third division cricket playing standard and sometime it also came in the media. We know the standard maintained here.

Before the start of the play playing,we know sometime who will win and who will lose in the game and this is very sad and we need to fix it. There is a lot of things involved in a cricketer’s career in this level because he might get out in a good ball but if he is out for bad decision on numerous occasion than his career will be over. So we must have a proper pipeline,’’ he said.

‘’We could not include our women’s cricketers because this decision was taken suddenly and if they have any demands they can include it with us. I am sure they must be having some demands and if they join us we can put it forward,’’ he said

‘’We did not include Under- 19 team here as they are preparing for the World Cup. Everybody else is here and we know everybody is with us. We are not going to involve in cricket unless our demand is fulfilled we are not co ming back to cricket,’’ he said.