Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are situated side by side in the ICC test ranking; and for Bangladesh, playing against Zimbabwe is always a prestige issue. This time Bangladesh cricket board have taken long term goals to improve the position of the team in the ranking and the implementations have started right from this home series. The board have taken the biggest ever budget for any home series which is around 10 crores of taka. Generally 6 to 7 crores of taka is spent in any home series.
The extra expenditure goes to the extra ten days of hospitality for the touring team, hotel bills, and daily allowance of the players and the application of Decision Review System (DRS) in the test series. The matches will be held in three venues instead of usual two which is another reason for the cost. Although BCB Chief Executive Officer informed that they are expecting to earn 30 – 40% of the costs from the commercials but the fact is that the board is going to face a huge amount of deficit in their budget and it will impose a large financial burden upon them. Generally the board faces financial losses to arrange home series with low ranked teams and this time the loss is going to be almost doubled due to the increased expenditure.
But what are the reasons behind all these happenings? CEO Mr. Nizamuddin Chowdhury described in brief, “We are trying our level best so that we will not have to face any uncertain situations in the future in regard to ICC’s new formula in test cricket.” The ‘Big three’ of international cricket suggested making double layers in test cricket so that top ranked teams do not have to face low ranked teams frequently. The proposal had been slightly perverted by the highest authority of cricket and now the matter is the lowest position of the ranking in 2017 will have to play test against the champion team of intercontinental cup in a four match home and away series.
Bangladesh is now in the tenth position of the ranking; the board is taking steps to uplift the team’s position in the ranking so that Bangladesh will not have to face the embarrassing situations. The board is carrying bi – lateral discussions with other countries for the future tour plans so that Bangladesh will have the opportunity to play as much tests as possible by the year of 2017. It is now almost certain that Bangladesh will play 26 tests by December, 2017 and 75% of these are home series.
All these plans and arrangement is in vain if tigers cannot perform in the field up to their potentials; CEO said, “There is no alternative of performance. Whatever efforts we make will be of no use if the cricketers cannot perform in the field.”
