Rangpur Riders chases Shakib still!
Photo- CF
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh Premier League franchise Rangpur Riders said on Tuesday that they wanted one direct signing of one local cricketer as they wanted to go after ace all-rounder Shakib al Hasan.
Rider’s management sat with the BPL governing council ahead of the new four-year cycle as earlier it was announced BPL have completed six-year cycle.
The announcement by BCB was made after Riders signed Shakib for the upcoming edition after the ace all-rounder decided to leave Dhaka Dynamites, where he played in the last three editions.
According to many observers, BPL governing council made this unexpected move after the signing of Shakib and Riders chief executive Ishtiaque Sadeque echoed the same sentiment adding that it could have been sorted out if they could sit with BPL governing council member more frequently.
‘’Usually we have one and half months before BPL and 15 days after that. We proposed earlier to keep the activities on throughout the year like IPL.
This issue happened after Shakib’s signing. If this did not happen, the meeting would happen after one more month. Our advice was that, a team is playing for four years, and for next four years you will need a core. There are some retention policy for the players, we asked for it,’’ he said.
‘’There were some fresh signing, board wants to give them. And from now on, there won’t be any Icon player rule. There will a direct signing of local player, we wanted that to be mandatory from the board,’’ he said.
Board has said that, we can sign 2-3 foreign players directly that’s why we proposed the board to make a similar rule for one local player. They said to give us the proposal formally, then we will discuss,’’ he said.
‘’Franchises make BPL successful. BPL is a big signing. BPL is a big tournament. If we tell other franchises about our planning, they will agree with us, I believe that. We have submitted. Franchises also had two meetings with BPL governing body last year, they said the rules won’t change. So we arranged our team according to ‘Icon can move freely’ rule. There are only four to five months left. They admitted that they also made some mistakes. I hope we can come to a decision all together,’’ he said.
I can’t say it with assurity. We will definitely put our aspiration up. The rest is the decision of the board. I did not say anything mentioning Shakib’s name. they said they will give the liberty to sign 2-3 foreign players directly than why not the same with a local player. I said the same. Because Rangpur Riders have signed Shakib already, they will go for him,’’ he added.
Sadeque added that they are also thinking of keeping Mashrafe in their set-up though he feels that they are not expecting him to be icon any more.
‘’Mashrafe is a player of our own. We decided that, if he retires he would not be the Icon player, so according to retention, both Mashrafe-Shakib will play for Rangpur. Mashrafe did not wanted to be an Icon since last year because he is retired from T20Is. So ethically or logically, Mashrafe won’t continue as Icon,’’ said Sadeque.
‘’Icon should be someone who is promising and new. Though we know, its tough to find out seven Icon players from our country. So Mashrafe doesn’t want tio be an Icon. We also heard that this year. So now, if he retires from one-day, he won’t be an Icon (player). According to our planning, Mashrafe was in retention. And now, if board makes a new rule, we can’t do anything. If there is no Icon policy, we will keep him,’’ he added.
