Banner Advertiser

Monday, September 15, 2008

[ALOCHONA] 6 national cricketers sell out to ICL

6 national cricketers sell out to ICL
Courtesy New Age 15/9/08 Azad Majumder

Six national players, dealing a major blow to Bangladesh cricket, retired from all forms of international and domestic cricket on Sunday, reportedly to participate in the breakaway Indian Cricket League.
   The decision of the six players — Habibul Bashar, Shahriar Nafees, Aftab Ahmed, Dhiman Ghosh, Farhad Reza and Mosharraf Hossain — was made following a report that at least 14 leading cricketers were going to join the ICL.
   All the Bangladeshi players will form a team, named the Dhaka Warriors, to play in the third edition of the Twenty20 competition slated to begin from October 10.
   The other cricketers linked with the competition are Alok Kapali, Nazim Uddin, Mohammad Rafique, Manjurul Islam, Tapash Baishya, Mohammad Sharif, Mahbubul Karim and Golam Mabud.
   Apart from Karim and Mabud, all of them have represented Bangladesh in Tests or One-Day Internationals. But only seven are still contracted players of the Bangladesh Cricket Board.
   Of the seven contracted players, excepting Nazim Uddin, six have now severed their ties with the BCB. Unconfirmed sources said Nazim too had reportedly sent a letter through fax from his hometown Chittagong, seeking retirement.
   The other players came to the BCB to submit their letters of retirement in the morning at a time when there was no one to receive them. The players later left the BCB office, leaving the letters at the reception.
   The officials of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, after coming to know of the sudden retirement, rushed to the office at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur and called an emergency meeting.
   ‘We are astonished at the sudden decision of the players. It was totally unexpected. We called them over the phone, sent text messages, but no one responded,’ the dumbfounded chairman of the cricket operations committee, Gazi Ashraf Hossain, told reporters at a press briefing.
   ‘Officially we don’t know why they have taken such a decision; all of them have mentioned “personal grounds” in their letters, which were all written in the same language. We have called them to the BCB at 2:00pm on Tuesday. Hopefully they will revoke their decision,’ said Gazi Ashraf.
   Ashraf read out the letter from all-rounder Farhad Reza which said, ‘I have taken the decision to retire from all international, first-class and club cricket. This is totally my personal decision and I wish Bangladesh cricket team all success.’
   Among the retired cricketers Farhad and Dhiman were in the Bangladesh squad for the three-match series against Australia. They are now expected to sign a contract with the ICL authority shortly.
   Ashraf said they would follow the ICC guideline in dealing with the players joining the ICL, a league that failed to get approval from the the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
   The players who participated in the earlier editions of the league have been banned from playing international cricket by their respective national cricket boards.

 

__._,_.___

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___