‘BPL governing council would welcome Shakib as CEO’

On Friday, Bangladesh Premier League governing council members came to a press conference alongside BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury to explain some of the limitations and criticisms of the ninth edition of the tournament.

All had come to a head when ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan had said that the BPL had not grown as a brand and he would have done a better job of organising the tournament as a CEO.

When the question was posed to BPL governing council chairman Sheikh Sohel, he said the governing council would welcome Shakib as a CEO.

"I welcome Shakib and thank him. If he wants to come as CEO of BPL, he has shown that interest. From the governing council, we welcome him. If he wants he can come and take responsibility as CEO," he said.

Shakib had referred to a movie and said that it would not take him even two months to fix BPL standards.

"Cinema isn't reality. He (Shakib) is still playing and can't come right away leaving the game. But he can come next year," Sohel added.

BCB had previously taken action against contracted players of the board for criticising the board's methods in running the BPL. This time BCB were not keen on focusing on Shakib's remark, with BPL governing council member secretary Ismail Haider Mallick saying they wanted to run the tournament efficiently instead.

Shakib had said that the Dhaka Premier League was better run than the BPL competition.  

"This [what Shakib said] is not discomforting. Earlier I was talking to Shakib. Talked to Mashrafe [Bin Mortaza[ as well. We are members of the same family and there can be differences of opinion.

"If someone says it they can. From what I see, Shakib often doesn't play premier division (Dhaka Premier League] matches. But till now he hasn't missed a BPL fixture. I don't think it's an argument.

He later joked: "If Shakib didn't talk, would there be publicity?"

Even as the tournament didn't induce excitement during the build-up, the ninth edition of the BPL certainly found some buzz from the exchange of words over Shakib's scathing criticism on Wednesday.