Source
BCB promises better school cricket
BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal (C) addresses a press conference of Standard Chartered Young Tigers Under-16 National Cricket tournament at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel yesterday. Standard Chartered Bank CEO Jim McCabe (2nd from R) was also present during the briefing. PHOTO: COURTESY
Sports Reporter
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will form a combined national school cricket team after next season's Standard Chartered Young Tigers National School Cricket tournament.
"We will arrange matches at home and abroad for this combined team so that the young cricketers can get more exposure," BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal while addressing a press conference yesterday at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel.
The media briefing was arranged to inform about this year's tournament where the BCB boss also expressed his high hopes on the school tournament. "We will try our best to make it a successful event in the domestic calendar because it's a breeding ground for our cricket.
"I promise you that school cricket will be held in front of 40,000 spectators from the next season," said an ambitious Kamal.
"Past is past," he said when his attention was drawn to the poor grounds and overall quality of cricket in the school competitions so far.
Kamal however admitted that they could not give the best facilities for the cricketers to sustain in different conditions.
"You saw our national team's performance in the Test series in England. We don't want to blame our cricketers for their failure because they tried their level best but the main problem was that our players are hardly accustomed with conditions like England. I must say we failed to provide them with proper facilities at home," he said.
With the financial support from Standard Chartered Bank, the development committee of BCB organised the two-tier tournament. The one was national school cricket competition and the other was the national under-16 (age-level) tournament.
BKSP became champions in both the competitions.
A total of 539 schools took part in the district round and 64 district champions played in the divisional round to qualify for the eight-team national round, while 64 district teams took part in the divisional round and qualified into the ten-team national round.
"From this year's competitions a total of 28 talented players have been selected for the national under-15 training camp and another 28 players for national under-17 training camp," said Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury, who was the chairman of the school tournament committee.
"The training camp already got underway. It's really encouraging that eighty per cent cricketers of the academy and under-19 teams are the products of school cricket," added Jalal.
BCB's directors Aminul Huq Moni and Gazi Ashraf Hossain, Standard Chartered Bank CEO Jim McCabe and head of corporate affairs Bitopi Das Chowdhury were also present in the function.