Cricket operates as usual

The recent tumult in the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is not far removed from the usual. Despite not yet being assigned a department following the BCB elections, Akram Khan has revealed that he wants to step down from his previous role as cricket operations chairman.

This is just one more instance that reinforces the narrative that the processes and results under the BCB leave a lot to be desired.

Players have complained about the quality of wickets in the National Cricket League and even though the ongoing Bangladesh Cricket League (BCL) has seen good performances, the quality required to edge the country's cricket forward has been largely missing.

Meanwhile the national men's team is in New Zealand and their results have not looked up for a while and the conditions in the country will test the limits of a side missing a few key players.

The BCB elections saw Nazmul Hassan elected for the fourth time as board president and, as usual, promises have been made. The lack of quality players in the pipeline, however, has been exposed yet again as key stars missed a few recent series.

The board of directors, elected as long ago as October this year, are yet to be assigned departments, and so they are still occupied in their old roles.

Coming back to Akram, who was elected uncontested from Chattogram Division, the task of the cricket operations chairman is to maintain relationships with overseas cricket boards while overseeing daily operations of the national teams and A teams for both international and domestic scheduling.

Akram, who had served as a national selector before becoming a part of BCB's tournament committee, did not have any real impact during those terms. Then he became the cricket operations chairman in 2014 before being replaced by Naimur Rahman for a year in 2015.  Akram returned to the role in 2016 and has been in the post since then.

It was Akram, who in March had mentioned that Shakib Al Hasan did not want to play in Tests and the latter had retorted by saying that Akram did not read his letter, asking to opt out of a tour. The incident led to question marks overs Akram's duties, but only momentarily. From instances like this to Akram informing reporters at the peak of the pandemic that Asia Cup preparations were about to get underway, only for the tournament to be cancelled soon afterwards, his record in the post does not inspire confidence.

On Wednesday, while talking to the media, the BCB president seemed perplexed by Akram's request to step down.

"We have not formed a committee yet so how can he leave it. The previous committee's tenure has ended so Akram was filling the role on an interim basis. When I heard the news in the media [of Akram trying to resign], I thought he didn't want to continue this interim role," the BCB president said.

More importantly, the BCB president said that the cricket operations department has a lot of tasks and the pressure can only be taken by someone who is willing to work steadfastly. Given Akram's last eight years in term, where he frequently did not have up-to-date information on matters that were under his jurisdiction, it remains to be seen whether the BCB considers Akram capable of leading such an important department where communication and transparency are of utmost importance.