Go Mustafiz, start bowling.’
The five-year old boy went to his bowing mark with the ball in his hand. He completes his bowling with a small run-up.
Is his real name Mustafiz?
Is his real name Mustafiz?
Discovery Cricket Academy coach Shahjahan responded with a smile, “No, his real name is Nafiul Haque Khan. He got the nickname for his bowling action.”
Nafiul joined Dhanmondi’s Discovery Cricket Academy seven months ago. A large number of children are joining the academies with a dream of becoming a cricketer. The success of the national cricket team has made them all the more interested in the game.
The number of private cricket coaching academies is on the rise in Dhaka. There are almost 300 academies in and around Dhaka now.
The number of small cricketers is also rising. Almost 30,000 children participated in the three age-based primary level (Medical test) selection of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) last season.
They were aged from 14 to 18 years. Majority of them are involved with different cricket academies of the country.
The academies of the country might play a vital role in the development of Bangladesh cricket.
100 academies in Dhaka alone
There is no single organisation in Dhaka to look after the cricket training academies in the city. The exact number of cricket coaching academies in Dhaka was also not available. A total of 69 academies took part in BCB’s under14 talent hunt programme in 2016-17 season. BCB thinks that the number of academies in Dhaka might be more than 100.
There are more than 200 academies outside Dhaka, said BCB divisional coaches. According to this statistics, there are almost 300 privately operated cricket coaching academies all around the country. The number of trainees in these academies could be more than 20,000.
Government initiated Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan (BKSP) was established in 1983, which is still considered a powerful source of the upcoming cricket talents.
Wahidul Gani is one of the few coaches who were the pioneers of the private coaching academies in Dhaka. The discoverer of today’s Ashraful, Wahidul Gani said the cricket coaching academies in Dhaka started in the middle of 90s. There were only four to five academies in the city then. This has gone up to the 100s within the last 10 years, he added.
High status of cricketers
The success of the national cricket team that started since 1997 is the main reason for the cricket academies to flourish this far. The consistent performance of the national team after winning the ICC Trophy has drawn people to cricket. This initiated the increase of cricket academies.
Cricketers nowadays are respected both socially and economically. BCB’s National Game Development manager Nazmul Abedin said, “Cricket presently is very strong socially. Parents feel proud when their children play at various levels of cricket. The academies are also increasing with the increased interest of the parents.”
Age-based cricket is still the main source of cricket talent in Bangladesh. That is why some say there is no other option than to make it more attractive. The cricketers outside the national squad also earn well now. BPL, Dhaka-based Premier League has good incentive along with the National League where a total of 120 players are participate in the first class matches. The parents also encourage their children to compete in these competitions though they know it is hard to get selected for the national team.
Lump sum payment
Children aging 8 to 20 years usually practice in the academies. Most of them are boys. Girls have also started taking interest, but they constitute not more than 5 per cent of the total participants. Admission fees of the academies range from Tk 1,000 to Tk 2,000. Monthly charges are from Tk 500 to Tk 1,000. Talents from the poor families get special waivers by some academies.
Keraniganj’s Beyara cricket academy chief Arif Hasan said, “We don’t get paid for almost 150 people among the 300 players. They also don’t have that ability. But if selected in the Dhaka League, then they have to pay 10 per cent of their earning to the academy.”
Most of the academies are run on the player’s money. Some have their own sponsors. Some get donation from the parents and the sponsors.
Cricket is for the middle-class
Though cricket is expensive, still mostly middle-class and lower-class people of the society are involved with this game. Most of the players even in academies of posh areas like Gulshan are from the middle-class or lower middle-class families of the society.
Gulshan Youth Club Cricket Academy coach Ali Haidar Sheikh said, “Boys from high-class families stays till under-15. Then they get busy with their studies from class VI-VII.”
Boys from middle-class families get interested in the game as financial facilities increased in the domestic cricket, said Wahidul Gani. Meanwhile, most of the cricketers in the national squad are from the district towns. Families and children from outside Dhaka are getting interested in cricket. Ironically, players like Shakib and Mashrafe were punished by their parents for playing cricket in their young age. The picture is now changing with time.
Academies role
According to the cricket experts, it is not right to ask for results from the cricket academies so early as the academies started their operations in just the last 10 years. However, a major part of the national level cricketers are from the extended Khulna region, who started playing with the local academies or the clubs of their areas. There are 25 academies in Khulna city, the most outside Dhaka. There were seven cricketers in the national squad—Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Imrul Kayes, Rubel Hossain, Mostafizur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, and Mehedi Hossain Miraz—from the south-western part of the country that participated in the last Champions Trophy.
BKSP also has a major role in supplying cricketers for the national squad. Three players in the national squad during the Champions Trophy—Shakib, Mishfiqur Rahim, and Soumya Sarkar—are students of BKSP. A total of 25 players among the 138 who played for the national squad till now are from BKSP.
Taskin Ahmed is the only current player in Bangladesh national cricket team who came from an academy. Players outside the national team—Shahriar Nafis, Mehrab Junior, Arafat Sunny, Marshal Ayub, and Ilias Sunny are from different clubs of Dhaka. Former national team players like—Mohammad Ashraful, Mohammad Sharif, Anwar Hossain and Bikash Ranjan are from different clubs of the capital.
BCB gets 10-15 players from Dhaka Metropolitan every year for the age-based (Under-15, 17, and 19) teams. This time it is 11 (among 82 players).
Grounds are the main crisis
Discussing the lack of players from Dhaka Metropolitan in the national and age-based cricket, BCB National Game Development manager Nazmul Abedin said, “There are no grounds. There is no facility of good practice in Dhaka city. A bowler gets only 10 to 15 minutes with the old ball, where a good bowler needs to practice for an hour or two. There is no such problem in the district towns. They also have fewer players than in Dhaka. There are adequate grounds. They can play lots of practice matches if they want.”
There is also a question of standard facilities in the academies around Dhaka. The main crisis is grounds.
Nazmul Abedin said, “A player can’t be made in a laboratory. Only a net won’t do the work. He needs to play in the grounds. Our players lack practical sense as they play fewer matches.”
There is also lack of coaches compared with the number of players in the academies. The standard and capability of the coaches are also in doubt. Most of the academies lack high quality cricket equipments. A lot of them have allegations of using the academies to only serve business purposes.
National team cricketer Shahriar Nafis, who is from Ankur Cricketers, said, “The people running the academies should have a mentality of sacrifice and dedication. Coaches at our time had less commercial mentality.”
BCB has its own initiative for talent hunt. BC appointed 62 coaches in 64 districts in the country. There are12 coaches in the division level. Different aged-base tournaments are also going on as well. The academies are working as support system in this initiative of BCB.
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