In a meeting yesterday the Bangladesh Cricket Board chalked out the draft of the possible domestic calendar for the next three seasons, informed the organisations cricket operations chairman Naimur Rahman.
According to the draft calendar that will be presented during the next board meeting for approval, the 17th National Cricket League is scheduled from September 17 and the third Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 from November 25 to December 25.
The franchise based first-class tournament Bangladesh Cricket League is proposed from January 5 to February 20, 2016 while the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) is scheduled to take place from March 11 till May 9, 2016.
Availability of the national cricketers has been a major issue in the past as leagues in Dhaka often experienced postponement due to the reluctance showed from the clubs. And the proposed calendar indicates the issue may arise once again as the Tigers will be concentrating on the World T20 when the DPL is scheduled.
“We want an undisturbed domestic calendar,” said Naimur adding, “Our board has always said that the domestic tournaments should not be a subject to the availability of the national cricketers; a cricket structure cannot run that way.”
He said, “National cricketers will participate when they can, they will only be available for the domestic competitions when they do not have any national team commitment.”
Naimur accounted several factors behind preparing the calendar as he hoped the Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis (CCDM) will play a vital role here in making the clubs agree to play in the absence of the national stars.
“We have to see the availability of the grounds, the players, umpires and also see the availability of the national cricketers. At the same time we also need to accommodate first, second and third division cricket tournament. So we have made this draft calendar looking into the factors and with opinions of everyone concerned,” he said.
