Bangladesh Premier League governing council chairman Sheikh Sohel has welcomed Shakib al Hasan if he were to become the Chief Executive Officer of BPL next year, and replied to Shakib's outburst on the overall situation of the country's premier Twenty20 competition.
Bangladesh Test and T20 captain Shakib took a swipe couple of days ago at the falling standards of the BPL over the years, and highlighted the Bangladesh Cricket Board's failure to develop it as a tournament, one that can compete with other leagues around the world.
Shakib also said to the media that he will drastically change the face of the tournament if given the responsibility.
Following up on Shakib's criticism, Sohel invited the ace all-rounder for the vacant position if he wants to work and improve the BPL.
“First, I would like to thank Shakib. Welcome. He wants to be the CEO of BPL. He expressed interest by himself. On behalf of the governing body I invite him (Shakib) to join us. If he wants, he can be the CEO in the coming year,” said Sohel.
“We thank him, he wants to be the CEO. He can join us on board in the next edition, and help us.
“Of course we welcome him. We are welcoming him now. He is currently playing. You have to treat him as a player. He cannot join us as a player now, he can come next year.”
The BPL regulatory body arranged a press meet Friday during the break between first and second match, and answered various questions regarding the tournament and comments made by Shakib and Mashrafe bin Mortaza, alongside local coach Mohammad Salahuddin, on the overall standard.
Bangladesh Cricket Board had previously taken action on a number of occasions against contracted players of the board for criticizing the BPL.
But this time after getting to know Shakib's perspective where he even said Dhaka Premier League is better than BPL, the board seems defensive and not likely to take any disciplinary measure against the Test and T20 captain.
BPL GC member secretary Ismail Haider Mallick and BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury informed that this is not the right time to make a comment, and said they want to run the tournament efficiently instead of taking action against Shakib.
“I see Shakib miss many Premier Division matches. But he never misses out on any BPL game. What if I ask him in return, why he missed many Premier Division matches? He's saying BPL is inferior to the Premier Division. But he never sits out a BPL game, it is in the Premier Division where he misses many matches. Actually this is not an argument. He (Shakib) is one of us,” said Mallick to the media.
“The more we talk about it (BPL), more publicity will be there. Let's say he didn't talk about all these things in the BPL, there would have been a lot less publicity. It's good, any positive or negative discussion is encouraged,” Mallick added.
The starting time of the matches created confusion among fans and all the concerned parties as BCB informed officially at 12:30pm.
Just two hours before the match, that the first game will begin at 2pm instead of 2:30pm.
Mallick said it was a miscommunication from their end and claimed that they posted it on BCB's official website and social media handles before the game.
But when it was checked on the website, there was no official announcement on timing change and on social media there was no official announcement separately either.