Can B League be a good example for Bangladesh Cricket?

[Eshen]

Here is the situation - BCB is at the grip of few strong Dhaka clubs (mostly Abahani and Mohammedan). Previous bodies of BCB tried to strengthen regional bodies from other parts of the country through NCL, but those bodies stayed financially dependent on BCB, corrupt, and inept. It seems highly unlikely that decentralization of cricket can be done through regional bodies.

NCL is now becoming more of a formality, just there to satisfy ICC's requirement from a full member country to have an FC league. IMO, this farce of a national league should be scrapped asap.

If we want to have a meaningful, strong, and professional FC league, it has to involve Dhaka clubs. However, although financially strong and much better organized than regional bodies are, Dhaka clubs still don't have grounds or training facilities to be elevated as FC teams. Dhaka, though financially much stronger than rest of the country, still can't support more than 4-5 clubs well.

My solution - BCB (or NSC) should lease grounds and facilities to clubs. But then again I doubt Dhaka can provide grounds and facilities on regular basis for more than 4 teams (besides academy, U/19, and national teams). BCB need to make better use of ground and facilities from other parts of the country, also of non-Dhaka based sponsors. Like B league for football, they should encourage clubs from other parts of the country to develop. Like football, I am confident Chittagong, Sylhet, and Narayanganj each can support at least one strong cricket team. Like football, four strong Dhaka clubs should fight for top honor in domestic circuit with three teams from those three other cities, and may be an 8th team from BKSP or BCB academy.

This can be also very similar to Sri Lanka's premier league, their main domestic league, where Colombo based clubs fight with clubs from other parts of the country.

[Imteaz]

Very constructive idea. But we don't have to work that hard. If BCB build divisional cricket association and allow them to control the divisional teams, our FC league will be enough competitive. Till now wicket is prepared according to club choice which should not be.

Present Board of Directors told that they would go with more or less this kind of strategy but they did not do anything in practical. Going for B-League type of thing will again need planning, money etc.

Only planning will never provide anything. Implementation is needed.

[_Rafi_]

Professional league would be a great solution. But BCB is not going to do this. They seems to be satisfied with current structure.

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[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Eshen
Here is the situation - BCB is at the grip of few strong Dhaka clubs (mostly Abahani and Mohammedan). Previous bodies of BCB tried to strengthen regional bodies from other parts of the country through NCL, but those bodies stayed financially dependent on BCB, corrupt, and inept. It seems highly unlikely that decentralization of cricket can be done through regional bodies.
....

Anything you devise the bold two part will be there. It would still be farce.

This is a slow process. I hope we have better people managing games in the regional sectors. You can never abandon decentralization. The clubs will be more powerful than ever. They will become a cartel. We do not want that. Getting the right people in the right area is the first step.

[mahbubH]

leasing fields to clubs is not a good idea in Bangladesh. clubs will the build a small building to play jua at night, rent the field for "Bayshakhi mela", "kurbani haat", "meena bazar", etc. and eventually will build permanent shops arond the field to rent. And off course there will be nobody involved to take care of the field.

DS Link of a news about month-long mela

[cricket_dorshok]

We have so much money, planning, etc. in BCB. But we are missing the most important one "a Salauddin for cricket".

[Eshen]

Originally Posted by Tigers_eye
Anything you devise the bold two part will be there. It would still be farce.

From what I hear about B league teams, clubs from Chittagong, Narayanganj, and Sylhet are not as inept as regional bodies from those areas. They also have their own sponsors, unlike NCL teams.

This is a slow process. I hope we have better people managing games in the regional sectors. You can never abandon decentralization. The clubs will be more powerful than ever. They will become a cartel. We do not want that. Getting the right people in the right area is the first step.

Clubs have already formed a cartel and have taken over BCB. Only the guy at the top (Jamali) is independent, everyone bellow him (Anam, Bobby, Siraj, Jalal, Lipu, etc) is a representative of this club or that club. To their credit, those guys are capable administrators (in Bangladeshi standard), dedicated big part of their life to Bangladesh cricket, many of them even spent big amounts of money out of their own pockets for sake of cricket. Problem is they are short sighted when it comes to developing cricket outside Dhaka.

It's not their fault that regional bodies are so weak and corrupt. What they need to do is to find a way around those bodies, and B league gives a good example in this respect.

[Eshen]

To add my previous post, T_E, I believe slow process will be trying to make regional bodies worth something. The trial is a failure for last 9 years, don't think that will change.

Clubs to their credit are much better organized. It's foolish trying to have a top flight league without them.

[Fazal]

May be.
But definitely Salauddin should be a good role model for Lipu.

[WarWolf]

Originally Posted by Eshen
To add my previous post, T_E, I believe slow process will be trying to make regional bodies worth something. The trial is a failure for last 9 years, don't think that will change.

Clubs to their credit are much better organized. It's foolish trying to have a top flight league without them.

First of all, there has been no effort to strengthen the regional bodies. There is practically no regional body at all. As there has been no trial so far, how can we anticipate that it won't be successful?

We have been talking over last few years for forming divisional cricket bodies. All these talks went to vain so far.

[WarWolf]

Originally Posted by Eshen
To add my previous post, T_E, I believe slow process will be trying to make regional bodies worth something. The trial is a failure for last 9 years, don't think that will change.

Clubs to their credit are much better organized. It's foolish trying to have a top flight league without them.

First of all, there has been no effort to strengthen the regional bodies. There is practically no regional body at all. As there has been no trial so far, how can we anticipate that it won't be successful?

We have been talking over last few years for forming divisional cricket bodies. All these talks went to vain so far. Unless BCB is faithful to itself, I see there is no hope in doing anything, be it strengthening regional cricket or be it club cricket.

[One World]

I do not see why we cannot keep faith on BCB, with leaps and bounds, since selection of
JS BCB actually did pretty well in the area of lobbying and keeping the performance of the team
within an improvement curve. They even removed the enigma from captaincy .

The in flux of quality player is not as fluent and strong as Lanka but infrastructure to nurture and
prosper is quiet appreciable. A nation wide league is definitely a good idea but still the achievement is not minor if not overwhelming.

[_Rafi_]

Originally Posted by One World
Ibut still the achievement is not minor if not overwhelming.

what we achieved from cricket is very obvious in normal situation as we are one of biggest cricket crazy nation in the world. A planned domestic structure, good training facility, proper management are vital to achieve something more. Our current achievement is still lesser than what we expected after getting test status.

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[IanW]

Eshen wrote "Here is the situation - BCB is at the grip of few strong Dhaka clubs (mostly Abahani and Mohammedan). Previous bodies of BCB tried to strengthen regional bodies from other parts of the country through NCL, but those bodies stayed financially dependent on BCB, corrupt, and inept. It seems highly unlikely that decentralization of cricket can be done through regional bodies." Regional bodies are dependant on the national body, as it's the national body that either has control of the money-making games, or passes on the money that the ICC gets from Indian pay TV/gambling interests. "NCL is now becoming more of a formality, just there to satisfy ICC's requirement from a full member country to have an FC league. IMO, this farce of a national league should be scrapped asap." Why is it a farce ? I see some pretty good FC games that seem to be turning out better cricketers. Yes, I think the BCB should lose more money playing more domestic FC games, but this should be done thru the existing FC arrangements. "If we want to have a meaningful, strong, and professional FC league, it has to involve Dhaka clubs. However, although financially strong and much better organized than regional bodies are, Dhaka clubs still don't have grounds or training facilities to be elevated as FC teams. Dhaka, though financially much stronger than rest of the country, still can't support more than 4-5 clubs well." If they want it enough, they can buy there own damn grounds. Lords is called Lords because it's the cow farmer Thomas Lord's old back pasture that he lent to the Marleybone Cricket Club. And if they cant organise their own damn ground, then I guess they don't have their act together well enough to be a FC team. "My solution - BCB (or NSC) should lease grounds and facilities to clubs. But then again I doubt Dhaka can provide grounds and facilities on regular basis for more than 4 teams (besides academy, U/19, and national teams). BCB need to make better use of ground and facilities from other parts of the country, also of non-Dhaka based sponsors. Like B league for football, they should encourage clubs from other parts of the country to develop. Like football, I am confident Chittagong, Sylhet, and Narayanganj each can support at least one strong cricket team. Like football, four strong Dhaka clubs should fight for top honor in domestic circuit with three teams from those three other cities, and may be an 8th team from BKSP or BCB academy." You misunderstand. Clubs are the feeders for the Provincial sides, which feed into the National sides. "This can be also very similar to Sri Lanka's premier league, their main domestic league, where Colombo based clubs fight with clubs from other parts of the country." Hmm, so, whats the touring record of Mohamedean and Abahani ? What sort of teams have they put together, and how have they gone ? They havent ? Well, then. Guess we'd better stick with the BCB calling the shots, and avoiding all those unfortunate club vs country incidents. Ian Whitchurch

[Eshen]

Time to bump the thread.

As predicted, NCL this year turned out to be meaningless. In previous years players had motivation to do better so that they could catch attention of Dhaka clubs, as DPL followed NCL. But this year DPL took place before NCL.

Once again, I strongly feel BCB needs to start a nationwide club league, or start a franchise league. This divisional league won't take us anywhere.

[nahaz]

Originally Posted by Eshen
Time to bump the thread.

As predicted, NCL this year turned out to be meaningless. In previous years players had motivation to do better so that they could catch attention of Dhaka clubs, as DPL followed NCL. But this year DPL took place before NCL.

Once again, I strongly feel BCB needs to start a nationwide club league, or start a franchise league. This divisional league won't take us anywhere.

How is it you feel this NCL 2009/10 is meaningless? We are getting more centuries than ever before, with better class players excelling...

I'd have to agree with Ian's post just above yours unfortunately. Clubs are already powerful enough without having the National Cricket League at their hands. I think a business model for the Divisional teams with money from Sponsors being used for the NCL teams' development will help. Start off by having free entry of NCL games and televising on BTV. Once interest increases sponsorships will increase. This will genenrate more money for players and produce more developments for their Divisions.

Hey I haven't done an MBA, but there's plenty in Bangladesh and overseas who have. Just have bodies of them in charge of every Division and see how quickly we flourish. The only way a cricket organisation develops is by developing its brand of cricket. Maybe some of the players can work for their divisons in the off-season too.

For the next couple of seasons though, they prob should have NCL before DPL to give players that motivation. ( I thought shining in the leagues and playing for the country is motivation enough. But I guess not many believe in our system , even players or selectors!)