At a standstill for Mutiny, bloodshed at BDR HQ

Thursday, February 26, 2009

At a standstill:

LET'S FACE IT: Players of City Club and the on-field umpire come off the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium ground yesterday after their Premier Division Cricket League match against Biman was unexpectedly postponed due to mutiny at BDR headquarters.Photo: STARAmeeruddin Zain

The city's sports arena saw a new sort of standstill yesterday due to BDR soldiers' mutiny at its headquarters. It led to the postponement of many sports events across the city and its suburbs.

The Cricket Committee of Dhaka Metropolis (CCDM) suspended all three matches of the Premier Division Cricket League halfway through as well as the First Division Cricket League games. However, the committee has decided to restart the suspended matches today from the point of stops.

Given the volatile political and military environment that we live in, it will be either a challenge or a cakewalk for CCDM and other sports organisations to run the show today. Panic and uncertainty was widespread in the morning, which played a key role in extending the fears from the rebellion reach upto distant places like BKSP, Savar and Fatullah in Narayanganj.

Teams hastily packed their bags and rushed back to their nests, after team officials and on-field umpires deemed it necessary to shelve the day's proceedings.

A young cricketer, who is playing for Indira Road in the First Division Cricket League yesterday found himself distressed when his game stopped midway. More misery was added when he found himself stranded at Mohammadpur; from where he had to walk to his Dhanmondi residence, owing to the unavailability of transports due to extensive fright among the populace.

The Bangladesh Golf Federation also postponed a scheduled reception for the golfers, who emerged winners in the All India Amateur Golf Championship in Kolkata and City Bank-Dhaka Bank Bangladesh Open, citing unavoidable circumstances.

Only two matches of the KFC Pizza Hut 5th Mini Handball Tournament (Girls) were held with Moghbazar Ispahani Girls School and Banani Biddya Niketan beating Viqarunnisa School and College and Summer Field respectively.

However, the Bangladesh Handball Federation in a statement later said that the tournament would remain suspended until further notice.

Football matches, however, were uninterrupted.

Postponements were not limited to sporting activities only due to the fiasco, as the much awaited media conference to announce the title sponsor for next month's Pakistan tour at Heritage Restaurant was also dropped. Owner of the restaurant Rizwan Bin Farouq expressed grief over the abrupt cancellation and said the meeting will be will rescheduled at a later date.

There is a supposed lesson which sports bodies in the country can learn from yesterday's occurrence, which is: you never know if a simple game of cricket, golf, handball or even a press conference can take place as planned, even when it is 30 odd kilometres away from the place of the event.

Mutiny, bloodshed at BDR HQ:

* 6 killed * 23 bullet-hit * govt offers amnesty BDR chief among many feared killed * fate of over 100 army officials unknown

BDR men wait at the gate of their Pilkhana headquarters in the capital for a negotiation team yesterday afternoon. Awami League lawmaker from Gaibandha-2 constituency Mahbub Ara Gini braves fear and heads towards the gate carrying a white flag, a symbol of peace. Photo: SK Enamul Haq

A bloody mutiny by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldiers sent Dhaka into a war footing yesterday as the paramilitaries fired several thousand shots from machineguns, killing at least two army officers, one non-commissioned BDR officer, and three civilians in BDR Pilkhana Headquarters.

Latest:

The mutinous BDR soldiers started turning in their arms to police in presence of Home Minister Sahara Khatun around 2:30am after about two hours of negotiation with the minister.

Soon after the surrender of arms began, heavy gunshots were heard from inside the BDR headquarters.

A little earlier, the mutineers were heard announcing on megaphone that if attacked, the soldiers would fight back. Half an hour later, Sahara was heard over megaphone urging the soldiers to turn in arms.

BCB stalled?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

BCB stalled?

A lot was expected when the tried and tested organisers took over the office of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), the richest sports body in the country, after a fervent election in November last year.

Despite coming from different panels they have gelled well to make many believe that these gentlemen are capable of getting the work done even at the highest level and boost up the activities on a fiercely competitive field, where Bangladesh have won more criticism than hearts.

It might be too early to say; three months on, where do we stand? But this time it is good enough to get the impression whether teamwork exists in the board to move forward with pragmatic plans. Unfortunately, there was hardly any evidence for what we can say this board is working together to speed up the activities to improve the standard of the game in the country.

Rather the whisper is all around that everything is stagnant. It seems that everybody is reluctant and in a mood to "let things happen".

The biggest challenge ahead for the game's governing body is to successfully hold the 2011 World Cup, which is undoubtedly, it's priority in the list but the high-ups have already admitted that they are lagging behind in their preparations.

In this particular case they might need government patronisation but how can one accept the fact, that the renewal of player's contract has yet to materialize though the last contact expired November last year, or the organisation has been running without the permanent CEO (chief executive officer) for last one year although there has been a plan of giving it a corporate shape.

Like it or hate it, in modern day cricket the success of anything depends on good governance and there is no doubt the board has a lot of good people working. But are we missing good professionals? Otherwise why has it failed to arrange a sponsor for the country's most coveted domestic competition, the Premier Division Cricket League? It was also hard to believe the way the board had arranged the Twenty20 tournament in a meaningless way when the latest version of the game is considered as a money-spinning competition.

One may disagree but the reality is that professionalism has taken a backseat ever since the departure of Zimbabwean CEO Macky Dudhia as the two-year tenure of Mahmudur Rahman saw a gradual decline of financial flow from domestic scene and it got worse with the absence of anyone at the important post.

After the 2005 election of the BCB the area that suffered most is development. And it only geared up for a short period of time when former cricketer Shakil Kasem tried to inject new blood into the activities of the most important department with his innovative ideas. Many may argue but Shakil was perhaps one of the few enlightened individuals in the post-Test era of Bangladesh cricket.

But the democratic practice saw the immature departure of a very energetic man who won many hearts during his short stint as a chairman of the development committee. He took his sad departure in his stride with a strong statement and it is fitting to recap his words: "I was a nightwatchman who could have perhaps scored a double hundred." This is perhaps a grey spot of democracy that an effervescent Kasem who was fit to fulfill the demand of modern day cricket became unfit in the battle of ballot.

These are some of so many other issues that could be raised but the main thing is that the present very knowledgeable people at the board has to put their heads together to look at these issues sooner than later as well as chalk out a long-term programme for which they will be remembered in the country's history of cricket.

ABAHANI, BIMAN Win, Mohamedan Lost

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Arman ton stuns Mohammedan:

Victoria's wicketkeeper-batsman Arman Hossain raises his bat after scoring his maiden century in the Premier Division Cricket League against Mohammedan Sporting Club at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday. Photo: BD

A scintillating unbeaten hundred by Arman Hossain helped Victoria pull off the first upset in the Premier Division Cricket League with an emphatic eight-wicket victory over Mohammedan at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.

The mediocre Victoria registered their first win in three matches in style as they outshone their celebrated opponents by taking over a challenging total of 242 quite convincingly. On the other hand it was second setback for the popular black and whites after their tied first game against Young Pegasus.

At the Fatullah Cricket Stadium, pace spearhead Mashrafe Bin Mortaza led from the front as defending champions Abahani bounced back from their second round defeat against Gazi Tank to secure a 69-run victory over Young Pegasus in the low-scoring match.

After Mahbubul Alam's four-wicket burst, in-form Shakib Al Hasan fired on as Biman maintained their winning run with a comfortable seven-wicket victory over Partex Sporting Club at BKSP.

VICTORIA-MOHAMMEDAN
Put into bat first Mohammedan made a poor start by losing three wickets for 33 runs but a 105-run fourth wicket partnership between Nasiruddin Faruque and Pankaj Joshi gave the giants a solid foundation to put up a fighting total on the board.

But there were surprises in store for them. It was amazing the way the Victoria's top order chased down the total as they were totally disciplined in their batting and rotated the strike to take off the pressure.

Victoria made a perfect start before Amit Majumder fell victim of run out to break the 61-run stand but his partner Arman was brilliant to frustrate the Mohammedan bowling attack and got good support from Ashraful Aziz and Akil Arshad to reach the target with 244 for 2 in 43.2 overs.

Arman, a wicketkeeper batsman from Mymensingh who played for Sonargaon Cricketers in the last season, was careful to complete the fifty in 60 balls with three boundaries but later came up strong to smash the second hundred in the league after Abahani's Rony Talukdar.

The right-hander smote three more fours and two sixes to complete his ton in 99 balls.

Captain Sohrawordi Shuvo was the only successful bowler when the left-arm spinner trapped Ashraful lbw. Ashraful made 50 off 73 balls that featured five fours and a six while Akil remained not out on 46 off 57 balls that contained six fours.

Earlier Nasiruddin hit 61 off 96 balls with four boundaries and Pankaj scored highest 82 off 120 balls that included eight fours and a six but it was Faisal Hossain who enabled Mohammedan to put up the commanding total. The left-hander smashed four boundaries and as many sixes to make a 43-ball 67.

ABAHANI-PEGASUS
Indian all-rounder Venugopal Rao made his debut with Abahani and scored the team highest 37 off 61 balls in his side's otherwise poor batting display but still the holders were bundled out for 175 runs.

Pegasus however failed to cash in on their brilliant bowling effort as country's leading paceman Mashrafe along with his new ball partner Shubashis Roy fired on to warp up Pegasus for 106 runs.

Mashrafe claimed four wickets for 25 runs in 6.2 overs while Roy captured three for 16 runs in 10 overs.

Sri Lankan Ruvin Peiris top scored 37 off 77 balls with the help of four boundaries.

BIMAN-PARTEX
Shakib's purple patch continued as the world's number one all-rounder in ODI followed up his two for 30 with a blazing unbeaten 51 that saw four boundaries and three sixes as Biman posted 159 for three in reply to Partex's 153-9.

Veteran opener Javed Omar was the other notable scorer with 47 off 107 balls that featured six fours.

It was however man-of-the-match Mahbubul Alam who gave the foundation for the comfortable victory as the national right-arm paceman, who grabbed five wickets in the previous match against Pegasus, returned with a four-wicket haul to make the damage in the Partex innings.

Pakistani Rashed Hanif was the top scorer for Partex with 33 runs.

BRIEF SCORES
MOHAMMEDAN: 242-7 in 50 overs (Nasiruddin 61, Pankaj 82, Faisal 67, extras 18; Aslam 2-23, Salahuddin 2-47, Akil 1-41).
VICTORIA: 244-2 in 43.2 overs (Amit 29, Arman 100 not out, Ashraful 50, Akil 46 not out, extras 19; Shuvo 1-42).
Result: Victoria won by eight wickets.

ABAHANI: 175 all out in 47.2 overs (Tamim 16, Sahagir 23, Venugopal 37, Nasir 16, Rezaul 14, Nadif 13, Mashrafe 24, Kamrul 14, extras 12; Jubaer 2-30, Ruvin 2-27, Bashar 3-36).
PEGASUS: 106 all out in 36.2 overs (Rahat 13, Ruvin 37, Rubayet 11, Mobassair 14, extras 15; Mashrafe 4-25, Roy 3-16).
Result: Abahani won by 69 runs.

PARTEX: 153-9 in 50 overs (Mehrab 12, Rashed 33, Rezaul 28, Ariful 14, Omar 14, Azim 11 not out, extras 15; Mahbubul 4-24, Shakib 2-30).
BIMAN: 159-3 in 33.2 overs (Sadat 29, Javed 47, Jahurul 15, Shakib 51 not out, extras 13; Rashed 2-26).
Result: Biman won by seven wickets.