Bulbul urges officials and players to stage a ‘clean’ NCL T20

Bangladesh's reputation as a cricketing nation has suffered blows in recent years due to allegations of fixing in different tiers of domestic cricket.

Earlier this year, this issue came to the forefront once again during the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) 2024-25 with several alleged incidents of fixings.

To deal with it, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had to form an independent inquiry committee to examine allegations of corruption, mismanagement, and systemic failures of the tournament.

On Monday, during the launching ceremony of second edition of National Cricket League T20 (NCL T20), set to begin on September 14, BCB president Aminul Islam Bulbul urged everyone involved in the tournament to protect the game's integrity and organize a clean tournament.

"I humbly request to those who will officiate the matches and will be involved in the matches, please protect the game. It's our responsibility to protect the game. There will be many kinds of fixing offers and we have to be careful in order to keep the event clean," Bulbul said during the ceremony.

"It's our responsibility towards the next generation. For the existence of Bangladesh cricket, we will organize such events where nobody would be able to question any match or incident," he added.

Bulbul was also optimistic regarding the second edition of NCL -- a tournament where only Bangladeshi cricketers feature -- and was hopeful to introduce a 50-over NCL tournament in the coming days.

"We only have one List A 50-over tournament and that's Dhaka Premier League. We will try to organize another List A tournament with our divisional teams. We will discuss it and will find a slot in the calendar. We are now playing four-day cricket and T20 cricket in NCL. We will seek the time, date and venues for the NCL 50-over tournament," he added.

Meanwhile, BCB's tournament committee chairman Akram Khan was also hopeful about getting good wickets and huge crowds in this edition of NCL T20 with the addition of two new venues -- Rajshahi and Bogura.

"In order to popularize cricket, we included Bogura and Rajshahi this year. There were a lot of challenges. We tried to make the wickets better. We have brought all the pitch covers from Dhaka to Rajshahi and Bogura," he said.

"Weather will be a big challenge for us as there is high chance of rain. We are expecting huge crowds in Rajshahi and Bogura as a lot of big stars will play there and many children will come and see them and will also get inspired to become cricketers," he said, adding that they will be giving 200-300 free tickets for the children to watch NCL matches live from the gallery.

Meanwhile, reigning champions Rangpur Division skipper Akbar Ali, who was among the eight cricketers representing their respective teams in the ceremony, expects more competitive matches as he feels all squads have good depth.

"I think all the squads are very much balanced. I think we will get to see competitive cricket in all games," he said.

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