Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) director and Bangladesh Premier League (BPL)  Governing Council Chairman Sheikh Sohel flouted the possibility of adding Khulna as the fourth venue in the current fleet of the venues in the upcoming edition of the Twenty20 Cricket Tournament.

BCB used to host BPL matches at three venues in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. And this time too it will stage the matches in these three venues.

The current state of the road and highways as well as the stadium in Khulna, Sohel said, is not enough good for hosting the ensuing seventh edition of the domestic Twenty20 cricket tournament.

In such consequences, the BPL governing council chairman said that it is not possible to host some matches of the imminent version of the BPL-7, which is scheduled to roll onto the ground on December 6 following a gala opening ceremony on December 3. Even it will not be right to host BPL matches in Khulna.

“We had wishes to host some matches of the BPL in Khulna this year,” said Sheikh Sohel.

“But we have to work so many works in the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium. Then the state of the Khulna Divisional Stadium as practice venue is not good, where I had to put down soil that still remained unfinished as the contractor left it unfinished. So, there is a lot of works to do there before hosting BPL. But I will not get enough time to do these works ahead of the BPL,” Sohel told The Independent.

“Even the road and highway of Khulna are not good enough. In some areas, loopholes have been developed. In a word, it’s really difficult for hosting matches in the imminent BPL,” he added.

Sohel informed that he talked with National Sports Council (NSC) secretary about Khulna Stadium but what he said is that they needed at least one year to complete the work.

By then, he also said that he has fixed a deputy secretary to look after the matter so that they could host some matches of the BPL in the next time.

However, BPL governing council chairman said that they have plans to organise the opening ceremony of the BPL gorgeously with the participation of the foreign and local artistes. But they are yet to sit for it.

He also said that they didn’t hold the opening ceremony of the BPL last two occasions despite having their willingness. Firstly, they didn’t do the ceremony due to the devastating floods in some areas of the country. Secondly, they didn’t do it because of the national parliamentary election.  

“We have BPL opening ceremony in mind but we are yet to sit for discussion. We will sit very soon with it. And hopefully we could be able to arrange a gala opening ceremony to celebrate this season BPL,” he concluded.

EA