Cricketers Strike: A Mission Yet to Be Accomplished

Bangladeshi cricketers, who do not want to share their feelings about what they have accomplished, have only one question-whether they could achieve what they wanted through their strike.

Last year, on this day (October 21), the whole world, and indeed Bangladesh's cricket, witnessed the most turbulent day in their history after many cricketers gathered in front of the academy premises to raise their voices that literally stunned everyone from spectators to reporters along with the common man.

One year has passed after the entire cricket community was rocked by the expected and orchestrated protests of the world's top professional cricketers, and there has been a wide-ranging discussion about what the cricketers of the world have accomplished from the protest when they called for a strike to their 11-point demands, and then there have been 13-point demands when the cricketers were.

The strike was led by the leading cricketers of the Bangladesh National Cricket Team and, in response, Bangladesh Cricket Board President Nazmul Hasan reacted furiously to the event and called the cricketers' movement a plot to demolish the cricket picture.

The strike lasted for three days after a tussle between the board and the cricketers and ended when the two key players in the country met for a meeting late at night in the boardroom of the BCB.

It looked that both parties had reached a common ground that prompted the cricketers to call off the strike but looking into the list of demands achieved, the majority are work in progress while there have been at least four of the demands that had almost zero progress.

The first demand by the cricketers was resignation of Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh [CWAB] president and its general secretary along with demanding respect.

‘’We always respect them and I don't see any deterioration in our relationship with the players as they are the main stakeholders of the board. The board takes responsibility like a guardian. I don't think there was any gap between us. They had some issues, which we have addressed. The relationship between the players and board is always cordial,’’ said BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury.

‘’We have kept all channels open, whichever medium they want to use [to communicate with us]. There's considerable player representation in the current board, [more] than ever before. By constitution, there is players' representation on the board. Players have access to everyone on the board. You very well know that our president has a personal relationship with the players."

However, there has been zero development to the demand given the cricketers never got back to CWAB on the issue following a meeting immediately after the strike.

"Within a month after their strike, we briefed the players including Shakib Al Hasan, about our association's constitution," Paul said. "Shakib told us that they will get back to us in three days, but they didn't get back to us for two weeks. They wanted another meeting but they only sent [Jahurul Islam] Omi. Shakib didn't come to the meeting,’’ said CWAB general secretary Debabrata Paul.

"But we have been in touch with the senior cricketers throughout the Covid-19 pandemic when we had online meetings about first-class cricketers. They have been quite active in five meetings so far. I would say that our relationship with the players is in better shape than at any point in time,’’ he said.

The players demanded to raise the match fee of first-class competition National Cricket League to Tk 1,00,000 and to improve accommodation, traveling, catering, and other facilities.

BCB increased the players’ pay in NCL to Tk 60,000 from Tk 35,000 for first-tier matches and Tk 50,000 from Tk 25,000 in second-tier matches and according to the left-arm spinner, Enamul Haque jr other facilities have also improved.

The players had also demanded pay raise for umpires, local coaches, and groundsmen and now for officiating in an NCL match, an umpire receives Tk 35,000 which was earlier Tk 20,000. Daily allowance also increased to Tk 2,500 from Tk 1,500. Travel allowance is matched with airfare. But local coaches and grounds man are yet to receive any pay hike and according to the local coaches, the last time they received a pay raise was maybe two years ago.

Players called for an increase in the number of players under the BCB central deal. The demand was not fulfilled, rather the number of contracted players was reduced by one under the most recent central contract. The previous deal had 17 cricketers under the BCB payroll, but at the latest, where cricketers were split into the red and white-ball categories, only 16 cricketers were involved.

Nizamuddin explained the reason citing that they opted not to increase to keep exclusivity.

“Central contract is a big thing for the cricketers. We believe there should be a good competition and only those who deserve should be named under the contract. The quality of the players will not improve if we start including them just for the sake of meeting the numbers. There should be a balance and we will try to maintain that,’’ said Nizamuddin.

One-day competition under the National Cricket League and a T20 competition for locals only, ahead of Bangladesh's Premier League T20, was requested by cricketers in number eight and the demand has not yet been fulfilled. According to Nizamuddin, domestic competitions should be based on necessity.

“We had once held a second T20 tournament and this time it will be corporate league [in November]. It is not possible to have another domestic one-day tournament at the moment. National League once had one-day competition under it but we have to understand the timely demand. Which format is more important, how much value another one-day competition add, you have to understand that first,” Nizamuddin explained.

Another important demand from cricketers was to sign individual contracts with Dhaka Premier League clubs rather than be drawn up through a player-by-choice.

This demand was met by the board, but now it's backfired for the players, as the clubs are now unwilling to clear their coronavirus-hit season dues, which forced the league to close after the first round.

The cricketers also called for the return of the franchise model in the Bangladesh Premier League, which had been scrapped in the last edition of the Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League, where BCB had owned all the franchises so far, BCB has been reluctant to step in that direction.

Players demanded that the board should share its revenue with both men and women cricketers- were ruled out by BCB president Nazmul a few days after the protest and it still remains the same. As per the board the model of revenue sharing is unrealistic in Bangladesh’s perspective.

Although not much has been accomplished after one year after the Bangladesh cricket protests, which have made headlines across the globe, the general feeling is that whatever has been accomplished is more than enough.