Bangladesh Board President speaks to CricInfo

With Bangladesh having been granted full Test status, after remaining an associate member of the ICC for twenty years, a delighted President of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, Saber H. Chowdhury, spoke to CricInfo and stressed how closely his country would like to be associated with this web site.

"CricInfo provides a very specialised service", he said. " It's a niche that nobody else covers so thoroughly and I am sure there is a lot of interest in it. Expatriate Bangladeshis in the U.K. and U.S.A. also follow it very closely. Providing information and getting data statistics is a major aspect of this excellent service.

"Where CricInfo can help Bangladesh is by raising the country's profile in the international community and that is very important. We have just got Test status and we need all the help and support. We would like the projection of a very positive image of Bangladesh. It is a country where cricket is a passion, there is a long history, culture and tradition of the game. These are the areas where we would like to have more highlight and focus.

"As far as the future is concerned, we would like to look at Cricinfo to have some sort of an association with Bangladesh."

Commenting on the audio service that CricInfo provides, Saber Chowdhury said: "There is a demand for this especially as we become increasingly prominent and we feature regularly on the Test calender. This is a service of Cricinfo that we would be very interested in and would like to discuss it."

He was confident on Bangladesh's playing capability over the entire period of a Test match. "If you look at recent Test matches, there are quite a few which have finished in three or four days, they have not lasted five days. When the full West Indies Test team was over in Bangladesh last year, we played them over a three day match. England A and MCC came and we played both those teams over three and four days. So I am not too nervous about the longer version of the game."

He added: "When we compare the strength of Bangladesh with other Test playing nations, we must look at where these nations were when they got Test status. It took New Zealand twenty-six years to win their first Test."

ICC Chief Executive, David Richards had also commented on the current playing strength of Bangladesh. "When Zimbabwe were given full Test status in 1992, their strength was also discussed and they said, 'we are the best of the rest and we have proved that, what more can you ask us to do. We can't get better in this environment, we need to take that next step up.'

Richards added: "Bangladesh have got tremendous passion for the game, they have got a huge population of 130 million, they have got great cricket culture and they have got history from the days they were East Pakistan."

As it is rare for a cricket conversation to take place these days without a mention of the controversy that has rocked the game, it was pointed out to Saber Chowdhury that it has been alleged that their victory over Pakistan ( which was only their third out of forty One-Day Internationals played by them ) in the World Cup match last year has had connotations of 'match-fixing'.

He responded: "We won that game fairly. Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties and if you take that out of cricket, then it doesn't have any charm or attraction. We played that match just above our best and Pakistan didn't play anywhere near their best. We won as the better team on the day."

He spoke of the "danger of corruption" that exists in cricket and said: " Obviously we will exercise due caution and do everything necessary to try to ensure that this does not creep into Bangladesh. I don't think that anyone can gaurantee that corruption will be totally eradicated but what we can do as administrators is to limit the scope of this happening. We can make it as difficult as possible for anyone who is tampering with the normal course of the game."

He went on to say:" If the penalties are rigid enough and the commitment is there, I can't see why this cannot be controlled. We take whatever steps that are necessry, for instance, when we had the Asia Cup, we had banned all mobile phones for the players and I had personally talked to the staff. Obviously, we have not been exposed to it as the full members are, but it is something that we are taking very, very seriously."