The Bangladesh Cricket Board said on Saturday that they are eyeing to restructure the National Cricket League [NCL] in order to bring competitiveness in the traditional first-class tournament.

The announcement was not surprising at all as it is believed that is the only way to do well in Test cricket, a format that had long been one of the weakest links of the Tigers.

Bangladesh have become a force to reckon with in ODIs over the last few years. They have also had their fair share of success in T20Is. But the format that tests the resilience or character of a team, has somewhat troubled the Tigers in the recent past.

“If we want to establish in Test cricket there is no better way than having a standard domestic first-class tournament. Everyone involved in this tournament needs to contribute. [I] hope we will be able to start a good thing from the coming season of NCL,” BCB [Bangladesh Cricket Board] chief selector Minhajul Abedin has clearly stated the intentions of the board regarding this matter.

The longest version of international cricket, Test, has seen Bangladesh suffer since they entered the elite class of the game. Although they have enjoyed a handful of victories in the format on an inconsistent basis, their recent performance has just shown that the team’s approach in the multi-day game has to go through some changes.

The first initiative that the board is going to take is ensuring the first-class cricketers’ fitness level is compatible with that of the national team players. There will be fitness trainers to ensure that the criteria set by the BCB are met.

Abedin said: “We have a lot of paid players in first-class. We discussed on criteria, system, and fitness of the players and this will start from first week of September. The target of this is to ensure the first-class cricketers match or is close to the fitness level of the national team cricketers.

“We are involving the fitness trainers and physios for this. We saw many cricketers in the HP face injury. This happens especially when the cricketers come to the camp following a domestic season. We have NCL starting from October first week so we will have around a month to get the first-class cricketers in shape. Hope we will be able to set a standard from this.”