Match fees doubled in domestic cricket

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has announced the doubling of match fees in all versions of domestic cricket in accordance with the promise given to the cricketers. Board president Tamim Iqbal made this announcement at a press conference in Mirpur on Thursday.

After taking charge as president of the ad-hoc committee, Tamim had increased the first-class cricket match fee from Tk 75,000 to Tk 1 lakh last May. Within six months that has been further increased to Tk 1.5 lakh. However, Dhaka’s club cricket will remain outside this increase.

In the one-day versions of the board’s tournaments National Cricket League (NCL) and Bangladesh Cricket League (BCL), cricketers used to get Tk 50,000 as match fee until now. Now it has been increased to Tk 1 lakh. In T20 the match fee has been increased from Tk 40,000 to Tk 80,000.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board had earlier said it will no longer organize the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) which has been running at a financial loss. However, if there is no BPL the income of cricketers also decreases. Therefore uncertainty had been created among the cricketers due to this decision of the board.

Last Tuesday in a meeting with the cricketers’ organization Cricketers’ Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB), BCB had given the promise of increasing match fees in the national league and Bangladesh Premier League. Today board president Tamim formally announced that.

He also indicated further increase of match fees in the future. Tamim said, “When we review this again two years from today, if BCB’s position remains good, if income increases further, we will increase this further.”

Tamim also said that as a result of increasing the match fees a cricketer will be able to earn Tk 30 to 35 lakh a year. At the same time he wants more professionalism from the players.

The BCB president said, “What we want from our side, they (the cricketers) will also have to fulfil now. There is a lot of discussion about professionalism in first-class cricket. There is no compromise on that. When someone does not pass the fitness test and makes requests regarding this... these will not be heard at all.”