The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has chalked out a long-term plan to deal with the private cricket academies that have mushroomed within and outside the capital ever since Bangladesh stepped into the international cricket arena.

The country’s apex cricketing body thinks cricket academies could be a major source of age-level cricketers, the source from which they could access a school of potential and talented players for the national teams in future.

The BCB has taken up a pilot project as a first step in its comprehensive plan, under which it introduced a cricket tournament called the BCB Academy Cup 2018.

The board selected 40 cricket academies from Dhaka Metropolis on the basis of certain criteria for the tournament. It has succeeded in its initial efforts. The maiden edition of the tournament was successfully completed, wherein Cricket Coaching School (CCS), which had earlier played premier-level cricket, emerged champions. Bayara Cricket Academy (BCA) were the runners-up.

CCS and BCA were awarded Tk. 1 lakh and Tk. 50,000 respectively along with crests and the winner’s trophy. Clearly, the board, the academy and the players have got a huge boost from the tournament.

Inspired, the board recently held a discussion meeting, whereby it invited 40 new private cricket academies, also culled from Dhaka Metropolis, apart from the existing 40 cricket academies. It has further plans to organise the next edition of the BCB Academy Cup Tournament.

It plans to gradually increase the number of academies and arrange a national competition with the participation of all the private academies across the country in future, as BCB director Khaled Mahmud Sujon hinted to media-persons at a pre-tournament press meet. Mahmud, who is also chairman of BCB Games Development Committee, told The Independent that they have chalked out plans centred on the country’s private cricket academies, which they will implement one by one.

“We have started this tournament with 40 cricket academies from Dhaka. We will increase the number of academies next time,” promised Mahmud.

“We also have plans to arrange a national competition involving academies all over the country,” he also told The Independent.

“With the help of the selectors, the board has, in the meantime, picked 37 talented players from the BCB Academy Cup Tournament to impart skills training to them over a week. We will soon give them another two-week-long skills training module. In that way, they can habituate themselves to modern training facilities from the age level,” he added.

Sources with the BCB’s Games Development disclosed that the board will provide coaching materials, playing kits and equipment to the selected academies. It will help each academy develop its standards and also provide qualified coaches so that players can get quality guidelines.

Kamrul Hasan, an executive of BCB Games Development, said they have given a set of guidelines to the academic representatives this time on how to carry out medical check-ups before the selection of players along with the process of players’ selection.

Hasan added that they had imposed restrictions in case of players’ selections, which they have lifted this time around to impart flexibility to the players’ selection process. He also disclosed that each academy had earlier been told to send seven to eight players, but this time, they have been told to send as many quality players as possible.