Int’l standard pitches expected in BPL

The grounds committee of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has intends to prepare ICC-event standard playing surfaces for the upcoming 10th edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), beginning January 19. 

Mahbub Anam, BCB director and ground committee chairman, is confident that BCB's current team under Tony Hemming's guidance is capable enough to prepare the pitches in line with ICC standards ahead of the T20 World Cup, to be staged in the Caribbean islands and the USA in June. 

""T20 is a game for batters, so we would want a lot of runs. We will try to prepare wickets similar to the ones that are prepared at ICC events, keeping in mind the upcoming ICC T20I World Cup," Anam told the reporters yesterday.

Anam and Roquibul Hasan, BPL technical committee chairman, met with the venue managers and curators at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday to convey their demand regarding batting-friendly pitches for the country's lone franchise-based T20 tournament. 

"We have got this BPL in the right time as players will be able to hone their skills ahead of the World Cup. We have tried to relay that information to them (venue managers and curators), so that the wickets are maximum batting-friendly this time around, resulting in big totals" said Roquibul.

"We saw runs scored in the last tournament but one or two instances where runs weren't being scored, we had questions. It was because of three different reasons--wickets, batters' failures, and bowlers doing well. We have addressed this," the former national captain added, further informing that there will be a full-fledged Decision Review System (DRS) from the tournament's onset.