BCB wants NCL on-time
Sports Reporter
The tournament committee of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is determined to start the franchise-based National Cricket League (NCL) from October 14 regardless of whether they are still lagging behind in preparing the guidelines for the new-look competition.
“We are determined to start the league as per our announced time because we want to create an opportunity for the national players to play at least two longer-version matches before the start of the home series against West Indies,” said BCB director and tournament committee chairman Gazi Ashraf Hossain yesterday.
West Indies are expected to tour Bangladesh in October-November to play one T20I, two Tests and five ODIs.
The tournament committee had exchanged views with the representatives of the divisions and Dhaka Metro regarding the franchise-based first-class tournament.
“We discussed many things. They wanted to know about their involvement with the franchise-based tournament. Hopefully we can prepare a guideline within the next seven days so that they can understand everything,” said Ashraf adding that there will be no stone left unturned to make the country's lone first-class competition more competitive and attractive.
The former national skipper was also not too bothered with the response from the sponsors.
“You can't compare this tournament with the BPL, which is completely a commercial venture. We want to start it if even two or three [franchises] can get sponsors. In that case the rest will play under their respective division's banner. We should start it to introduce real competitiveness in the first-class competition,” he added.
The opening and final matches will be day-night affairs which will take place at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur and pink balls will be used in the day-night fixt
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