Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hasan yesterday agreed to sit down with his rival in the upcoming BCB election Saber Hossain Chowdhury for an open discussion, but stopped short of accepting to be part of a televised debate.
“I was not in the country and I heard about this challenge and after three-four days I met him at the airport where I directly said to him that I am ready to sit down, anytime and anyplace one-on-one but of course, the presence of the media,” said Nazmul.
The BCB boss however, claimed he did not know of Saber’s challenge for a televised debate. “Unfortunately, I have never received any invitation from him and I never heard of this,” he claimed.
On a different matter, Nazmul spoke about the steps being taken to arrange for the election. He said a letter asking the National Sports Council (NSC) to form an election commission would be sent in the next week or so, and added, “But we have not sent any letter regarding councilors. We will talk about this issue after tomorrow.”
Nazmul was confident that the election would be held in September or early October and before Eid-Ul-Azha. “I am thinking about having the election this month, but we need to talk with the NSC. If this isn’t possible, then it may happen in early October. We discuss the issue after tomorrow.”
He went on to explain that the election had been delayed because certain legal complications had to be cleared up after a court ruled on the matter about a month ago and denied the rumour that he had delayed the process so as to ensure everything would be in his favour.
“Of course there will be election, there is no doubt about that. There were some instructions from the ICC and it was scheduled to be done much earlier, but they have given Bangladesh some additional time and we have to do this on time,” he added.
Nazmul also spoke about why Pakistani players would not be part of the upcoming Dhaka Premier League.
“We did not stop their cricketers last season but what PCB has done by not allowing there cricketers to play in the BPL at the very last moment was something unusual, and after that, we decided to run our domestic tournament without them. And we are sticking to that,” adding there was no chance of discussions with the Pakistani board to change the decision.
