BCB looking to facilitate county cricket gigs for senior-team cricketers

Bangladesh Cricket Board is looking to send some of the country’s leading cricketers to county cricket to hone their skill sets. To make headway in this regard, the board has asked newly appointed head coach Steve Rhodes to try and make some arrangements so that some of his charges have the opportunity to play in the county circuit.

Rhodes, a familiar name in the English domestic system due to his involvement both as a player and coach, has assured he would try his best to do facilitate such a move.

“I have requested him [Rhodes] to lay the groundwork for this, when we had a meeting. He said that he will try. We will discuss again once the [training] camp starts on 27th,” chief selector Minhajul Abedin told Cricbuzz.

“The players have nothing to do in the off-season. They could go and play there [in England] during that time. There is club cricket and many leagues in England.”

Shakib Al Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman and Tamim Iqbal have previously had the chance of playing in county clubs though the latter two were only part of T20 cricket. Shakib played for Worcestershire under Rhodes while left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur and opener Tamim played for Sussex and Essex respectively in the T20 tournament.

Minhajul opined that there is nothing better than the English county cricket to brush up the players’ fundamental skill sets and added that that Rhodes would talk to the agents to see how such moves could be set up.

“He [Rhodes] will have to consult with the agents, then they can arrange something. There are many agents who can make some arrangements once you provide them the bio data and then they can fix the clubs,” Minhajul said.

“The players have to be interested. The likes of Sri Lanka are doing well because their players, or even the Indian players play there [in county circuit]. It is not likely to happen this year but definitely we will have to target the next season,” he added.

“They have provincial leagues, similar to the ones we organize in Dhaka, Chittagong, or Khulna and in these leagues, every team can play one professional cricketer. We have to send one player to each of these places. The agents can link [the players] with Dublin, Scotland, or the whole United Kingdom.

“It is too early to say anything but definitely we would like to see some of our players playing in the county. We are looking forward to see how it eventually ends up as far participation of our national cricketers in the county is concerned.”

© Cricbuzz