Saber Hossain: First of all I would like to congratulate the Bangladesh Cricket Board on appointing a CEO. I think it was something that was long overdue. We took the decision but were not able to do it. Continuity if you ask me I think there was a huge hiccup when the new Board took over. Because the Board did try to go back on some of the old things we did previously. And on domestic structure that was certainly a reversal of the earlier policy.

We had a programme of A teams touring and there was no activity there. The way we were doing it was a year before the Test team visits a certain country the A team will go.

Both KZ Islam and I were Board presidents and I think we exercised authority and were given the leverage and independence to work.

So I appeal to the present Board don't make your president a lame duck president. Give him the authority and power to decide. There are whisperings, which are now turning into a loud chorus that he cannot decide because there are other influences within the Board. I don't think this is healthy because if we are talking about the CEO who is the CEO going to report to. Let him report to the president because he is the person that is ultimately accountable. If the president is not really in charge of his ship then it's unfair to hold him accountable and blame him.

The second point is the CEO must have a management team. Without that management team he cannot function. So merely by appointing a single individual it would be unfair to expect anything substantial from Dudhia in two years time.

Mahfuz Anam: Are you talking about an executive president who must exercise a lot of power.

Saber Hossain: No, I'm coming to that. The recommendations we had out of the 2001 AGM was that even the president should be elected. What we are talking about now is does the president himself have total control, total authority? I think this should be a lesson for the future also because a CEO just can't work.

KZ Islam talked about three individuals being chairmen of various tournament committees. Personally don't see any problem as long as the CEO is allowed to call the shots. Unfortunately, what we have had in the past is that individuals who are in that position often feel that I'm honorary member and he's a paid employee so my word is going to prevail over him.

Every time we've appointed someone the thing has been he's a paid person so he's a servant. I'm superior to him and he is subservient to me. We have to come out of that mindset.

So unless you do this basic thing no matter how many individuals or competent individuals you have, the system is not going to work.

Mahfuz Anam: We are now entering the last phase of our roundtable which is a set of recommendations.

Mainul Haq: On the management issue I' think the present Board is setting up a Board with a president, general secretary then directors. Then when the next government comes in and it changes. So the first priority must be to restructure the Board.

Mahfuz Anam: So how to restructure the Board? Is that something we deal with here? What about the recommendations of the inquiry committee? Have they been taken up?

Mahbub Anam: It was made public and I think it's a public document now. The Board has taken the good out of it. It was placed before the Board and accepted in its entirety.

KZ Islam: We did not pay enough attention here to our national team and how they are treated. The Board had suggested that a squad of 15-20 best players be selected, trained and allowed to play with the assurance that except with repeat poor performers, they would be retained in the team. The Bangladesh team and especially Saber Hossain Chowdhury have done more for the image of the country than the Foreign Office has done in the last 33 years. My main message would be giving our national cricketers special treatment, good allowance and if possible they should be sent abroad when not playing cricket.

Faruque Ahmed: I'm sorry to say we are not getting enough practice facilities especially on turf wickets. Even the national players don't practice on turf wickets when they are not playing. The blame should not always fall on the players the management should also share it.

Mahfuz Anam: But what are your recommendations?

Faruque Ahmed: Although Mahbub bhai said that they are building indoor facilities. But before that we will have to ensure better outdoor facilities, restart the home and away structure in domestic cricket and make the pitches more competitive.

Mahfuz Anam: It's very easy saying we need more facilities and coaches. Let me give an example a boy who got the highest mark worldwide in the O'Level English examination came from a school in Bangladesh. Of course he's an exception but what I'm saying is that; are we making the best use of our resources? People said that we have lots of grounds in all the districts and pitches are used in other games. KZ Islam said that we have tried 50 players in the last three years. We are changing coaches, we change the players and we change leadership. So, I think the point has been made that we require continuity of policy, continuity of leadership and decentralisation of cricket. Furthermore, we need to promote domestic cricket and have a professional structure separate from a political structure. But the role of cricket clubs has not been discussed.

Shafiqur Rahman Munna: I'm the president of Victoria Sporting Club. From the club's point of view I think we produce the players in Bangladesh context. And I think until we make professional players we can't produce more players. In England or Australia, clubs receive 20 per cent of the transfer fee. Here we are spending nearly a crore per season on players but get no benefits. We literally beg, borrow, and steal to make a team.

Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury: I disagree that the big clubs are producing the players. Rather it is the smaller clubs who are scouting the talents from all over the country. The big clubs enter the transfer market to collect the finished product. So, it's fair to say the small clubs deserve the credit.

Mahbub Anam: Can I say one thing? I also come from a club structure. One of the biggest clubs is Mohammedan. But I think we cannot be narrow focused into a situation. I think we need a fully integrated system which will include club cricket with the national cricket. I disagree that clubs have produced cricketers. I played for a smaller club and I was bought by Mohammedan because I was performing.

Mahfuz Anam: That means clubs only buy players and they are not producing.

Shafiqur Rahman Munna: I disagree. You see, we are producing under-13, under-15 and under-17 players and nourishing them. The clubs are doing that.

Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury: It is the clubs who are producing players. They spot players from the districts maybe but there are many Dhaka-based clubs who have players from very early age. They are not from districts and they live in Dhaka.

The big clubs take talented players from the smaller clubs. Your club never went to Sylhet or Rangpur or somewhere else to bring a player. They take players from Dhaka-based clubs.

The lower order clubs, they produce the players and you enjoyed the cream of it.

Mahbub Anam: What I wanted to say is that there should be more contribution at development levels.

Saber Hossain: I agree that you need integration because if you don't then it becomes a problem. If club cricket is not in the same frequency as development of your national cricket then look at the composition of the Cricket Board.

This is a very important point because the Cricket Board is comprised of the individuals who have had a lot of contribution in club cricket. And yet, although they are from a Dhaka-based club, they are vested with the responsibility of manning the game at the national level.

Unless you harmonise the two, you are going to have contradictions which we have had in the past. What is the influence that the clubs have in decision making within the Cricket Board? This is also a major issue because they cannot be expected to preside over decisions that go against the interests of the clubs.

We can't shed our club identity. I was also a part of a club. That's how I came into the system that's our culture. Maybe one option is for the top clubs to play the three or four-day version of the game.

Mahbub Anam: Last year, we had a longer version of club cricket here. We played a four-day version in the super league. We do have a four-day cricket competition which is on home and away basis and somehow or other there has to be more longer version of cricket which maybe three-day cricket but we cannot dilute the national cricket which used to be the premier tournament and it has to be the only four-day tournament. Any other tournament that we play in a longer version can be a two-day or a three-day.

On the finances, if I'm asked to say from 2001 till 2003 there was definitely financial hardship which stopped the progress of a number of BCB events. The major fund that has come from the ICC's contribution of the World Cup for each Test playing nation which came in 2003. And that is why I think in between 2001 and 2002, the amount of fund that was in the Board did not allow a lot of projects to be taken in.

But I must say that the first tour we had with West Indies coming in, the Board made a profit of five million taka over expenditures over income.

What we have done in financial terms is that in the last couple of months we are sitting with each of the events that the BCB produces. And we have done a yearly budget which was never done in the past.

There was no budgetary control with Board for last 30 years. Every event was just spent. At this stage, we are going with the budget for the first year and also multiply with the four-year programme.

We are budgeting four years and matching it with the fund that will be available to that. If there is a mismatch to the budget, we will look into avenues of meeting that revenue.

Maqbul Hussein Dudhia: The future depends on all of us and not just one person.

Mahfuz Anam: When it depends on everybody then nothing happens.

Maqbul Hussein Dudhia: It means everybody has to put their shoulders together. I think what has impressed me since my arrival in Bangladesh has been the amount of passion.

But passion in itself is a two-edged sword. It can be a constructive force and a destructive force.

In pre-2000, we were an ICC associate member country. A lot of work was done to convince the ICC that Bangladesh deserved Test status.

It's how we manage our resources, not only financial but personal and capacity building that we need to put it all together to deliver.

To summarise, this particular document with the Cricket Australia which is a very good association and the previous Board I think should be congratulated. But the strategic priority that the document set up was, introduce a management structure, development of excellent facilities, develop high-performance cricket based upon a system of continuous improvement including your strong and viable club system. Players, coaches, umpires, curators and administrators through development of a fully integrated school-club cricket system nationally. Ensure cricket has a strong and sustainable financial base.

First and foremost is to move a volunteer-based organisation into the professional ranks. In this volunteer base, obviously the power is rested in volunteers, committee chairmen.

I need to set up what would be the proposed organisational structure to take us through to the next phase. I also need a business plan.

I think, the management structure is very important because we need to have cricket direction and cricket functionality. I'm proposing to set up a team of four to five. Even that number would again be limited by resource. I'm looking towards June-July 2004 in terms of the calendar of the organisation. It's a calendar right through to 2006 for under-13, under-15, under-17, under-19, under-23, A and the national teams.

I hoped the Board would be able to make this public towards the end of January 2004 but with the Under-19 World Cup coming up in February, it might just be delayed to end of March. We have put together a high performance unit, or in other words, the best technical brains at our disposal that includes Dav Whatmore, his two support staff and also Richard McInnes and his physio, chairman of the development committee and his member secretary, various coaches that have been involved at least Level Two with Australia and another coach that has ECB Level Three. We have involved the national team selectors. And on the policy we have three committee chairmen development, cricket and ground which are key components and I managing and putting these things together with this particular group.

How we build the competition to be. The number one competition is a challenge. History and the way things have been done are basically been focused on Dhaka League. Unfortunate that the emotions and subjectivity towards Dhaka League takes away the attention towards the national competition. The first-class competition must become the jewel in the crown, it has to. Every player must aspire to be there, and the standard of that cricket must be such that the leap from there into a Test team must be as little as possible. How we achieve that is a challenge. With that comes everything and again I want to reemphasis that none of this aspect happens in its singular form or one singular aspect. It has to be an integrated approach. Everything fits into everything that how much of that everything does you put in particular areas is the skill of delivery and it is govern by the resources you have people and money. We don't have qualified people unfortunately enough to make a proper delivery.

I am just to go in a summery type of way because I am sure people are getting bored with my voice already. I wish I had all the tools to be able to deliver this on a more professional way and a power point of something that I show you and I promise you. I assure you that as soon an as possible I hope to organise my presentation before going fully public.

To move forward, that management structure chief executive sits directly under the president and report to him. I intend having this high performance unit because on the cut a cross all the bureaucracy and short cut a lot of issues in terms of high performance.

And high performance begins at the under-13 level all the way through to the national team and how do you deliver high performance and what do we mean by this. Do we have the coaches that can deliver cricket as we know it today?

It is not only how you bat and ball, but how do you deliver yourself as a cricketer what is the psychological makeup, the mentality and your goal. To achieve one's goal involves a collective unit that also includes physiotherapy, curator and many aspects.Came development and I go to that little bit longer later, cricket operation that's the National League, tour planning and those can be arrangement the laws of the game.

Commercially, I believe very strongly that Bangladesh cricket in undervalued. If you consider a population of a hundred thirty or hundred forty million, I see there is strong a market. But the way we are selling our sponsorship is wholly inappropriate. But what we are selling we are not sure.

So, part of the calendarisation and part of breaking this into whatever the calendar is and what our component is and what our development delivery is from there we come what our packages that we want to sale.

We need marketing expertise and through ACB (I called it ACB because not everybody is familiar with ACB's name change to Cricket Australia), we are hoping to have a project officer on marketing in January for a month. We can't afford him here all the time and we looking towards educating our system as to what our commercial aspect should be.

Facilities, equipment, development and its management, administration of human resources information technology those are part in components of the team I need to put under me. I won't go too much into the financial issues but they cover certain things like the commercial aspects, the game development issues, salaries and administration facilities extras, Cricket operations, tour planning and management and national competitions and rules, all national team affairs.

Game development: We need to change the culture of our cricket development. Change in a sense that we need to have coaches with right skill so that they can also train our local coaches alongside coaching our boys. It will help us to reduce dependence on foreign coaches, which is very expensive.

As former president Saber Chowdhury mentioned about pipeline, I think it is a very good analogy. We have a situation where there is a tremendous amount of leagues where we are losing players and our delivery of that pipeline is not effective. We need to plug those gaps.

The analogy can be drawn into raw material coming in one side of the pipeline finishing with the final product being a national team player or your first-class player. In there, there is a process that takes place what inputs to be put in, so that at the end of it what comes out of it.

The prioritisation needs to take place. We need to put in an academy as well. But the academy is not a solution to our problem. It is a means by which we can deliver a particular aspect of high performance.

I observed very keenly and objectively and critically how we delivered the England tour and much needs to be improved. But again, I can't be too critical because all that was based on volunteers. Talking about divisional management we were not able to manage cricket in this particular area.

Yes, we are getting six divisional stadiums, but who is going to look after them? What's going to happen in the stadium? How we are going to play cricket in those stadiums? These are the issues we need to address and one of the challenges.

But in a nutshell I would like to believe that the future is bright as long as we manage our passion correctly instead of throwing sticks and stones. Everybody is welcome to make a comment, to have his/her opinion. But if we can pull together and be constructive in our approach, the future really does augur well. I believe that we need to be realistic. Where do we want to be in five years time because we need to start from bottom-up?

Mahfuz Anam: Thank you very much for quite a comprehensive presentation. I think we are at the end of our session so would everybody briefly make their final comments.

Gazi Ashraf Hossain: Whether the Board is the main key and heart of cricket and whether the best possible people are getting opportunities to run the show or not are the most important issues that should be considered.

Khondokar Jamil Uddin: We are talking about quality people and what policies should be taken but all these things depend on qualities like honesty, sincerity, responsibility and impartiality.

Mahfuz Anam: I think your point is self-explanatory, it is very necessary.

Ziaul Islam: Already infrastructure, management and everything has been discussed that's why I want to say the BKSP is the biggest problem because they don't have any quality coaches and are not producing cricketers like Faruque, Gazi Ashraf or Minhazul Abedin.

Mahfuz Anam: So the BKSP suffers from lack of good coaches?

Ziaul Islam: We are getting facilities from the Bangladesh Cricket Board. They have infrastructure, they have cricket practice facilities, bowling machines but still they are not producing quality players. Regarding the selection committee they don't have a bank of fast bowlers. They need to have a bank of right-arm off-break bowlers, leg-break bowlers.

Faruque Ahmed: I think there should be representatives from the cricketers' association on the Board too. They are playing the game, so they have to get their woes conveyed to the game's managers. So the Board should recognise these associations.

Saber Hossain: You see ninety-five per cent of the work in any field can be done by everybody. What the Board is doing today the subsequent Board will do ninety-ninety five per cent and this is same as a newspaper. I published a newspaper he published a newspaper and he is the editor and it's the five per cent that makes the difference. That extra five per cent from the Cricket Board that I look for is leadership, dynamism, flare and imagination. I think that is very important. We had a target that we will have the 2011 World Cup in Bangladesh. That's the dream people want so if you come up with more positive news about the game then you can provide the leadership and you can catch the imagination of the public.

Mahfuz Anam: Thank you very much. I would like to say from the media's point of view The Daily Star is a very constructive newspaper and we are fully behind you in all your efforts. Sometimes you may have some ambiguous feeling about media and sometimes you may find us a little pushy but it is not with the intention of embarrassing you, rather our effort is to help you go forward. But I think there is a need to be little more open with the media. For example, Mahbub Anam you took credit about sharing the inquiry committee report when in fact it was we who published it before you did and I think the Board was very unhappy about it. But if we didn't publish it ourselves you might not have made the document public. Maybe I'm wrong but I have seen so many inquiry reports done by the government which never go public. Our culture is such that we always hide our faults. Now the CEO has mentioned that we need to be patient, I understand that but this country is hungry for success. Cricket seems to be the one that will give us one.

The Daily Star wants you to succeed. At the same time why not share your problems and disappointments with us? We want to make your dreams come true. I was very impressed by the detailed programme that he laid out. It seems to cover all that we talked about here. I think as Saber Hossain very correctly said that we really want you to succeed.

Maybe in six months time we can come back and see how far we have gone. You can always use the media because sometimes you can't tell the government directly about your problems or concerns.

Mahbub Anam: I would like to thank The Daily Star on behalf of the Board for organizing this roundtable. I think we discussed many issues and there has been a lot of constructive criticism and I'm taking it in good spirit.

Mahfuz Anam: I think it was positive most of the time. On behalf of The Daily Star let me take the opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to you all for sparing your precious time to attend this roundtable. This is our way of helping the process of taking the game forward.

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