The pending six months’ salaries of 105 first class cricketers outside the national team who are under the renewed central contract have been transferred to their respective bank accounts, informed Nizamuddin Chowdhury yesterday, the acting CEO of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).
“We have already approved the renewed contract and the players have already received their salaries in their respective bank accounts, and the contracted cricketers will be receiving their salaries regularly from now on,” said Nizamuddin.
A pending in the approval of the first class cricketers’ renewed contract meant they were denied their salaries from February this year and yesterday’s confirmation from the acting CEO of BCB means the dues till July have been cleared as a discarded national cricketer also confirmed yesterday,
“I have received my salaries for the last six months just a couple of days back in my bank account.”
However, BCB took a long time to approve the central contract for the cricketers citing this year’s busy international schedules behind the delay as the old contract expired last December and no concrete initiative regarding the renewal of the contract was taken by BCB in in the following six months. This made the cricketers doubtful and anxious about their salaries for the months which had already passed.
AHM Mostafa Kamal, the former president of BCB and the current ICC president, brought 105 cricketers under the central contract from outside the national team for the first time in 2012. It was a landmark step towards the decentralization of cricket in Bangladesh from its Dhaka-centric structure.
According to the previous contract, in addition to the match fees, a cricketer with 11 years of first-class experience received Tk 25,000 per month under Category A while players with 6-10 years of experience received Tk 20,000 per month under Category B, and players with experience of 1-5 years received Tk 15,000 per month under Category C.
BCB took the initiative of bringing in first-class cricketers under the central contract in order to create competition among the players in the National Cricket League, the first-class cricket competition of the country played among the divisional sports association teams.