First-class cricket or picnic cricket?

Nafees Iqbal would never forget the day his uncle Akram Khan asked him to play in the National Cricket League in 1999. "I walked across the road from my house to the MA Aziz Stadium with my whites. I went into the dressing-room, felt a little intimidated with so many senior players around. We fielded first, and Saifullah Magsi struck 170-odd. Soon it was our turn to bat, and I made 126. My whole family had come to see the game, and it was such a proud moment."

That was the first round of the NCL's first season, about a year before Bangladesh played their inaugural Test. There had been two and three-day matches in Bangladesh in the National Cricket Championship, but it was sporadic. The NCL was formed to tick one of the boxes that led to Bangladesh's Test status, and a few seasons later it was given first-class status. So like Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, Bangladesh would also get their Test status before their domestic long-format tournament got first-class status.

At the time, it was expected to be the stage for future Bangladesh Test cricketers to develop the skills, mentality and temperament for a longer period. It was divided into the divisional headquarters, meaning room was left for players from outside the main cities and towns to get a chance. While that has happened in the last two decades, only a few, incredibly, have come through the first-class system.

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Habibul Bashar was facing a senior pace bowler in the nets during the early days of Bangladesh's first-class season. The bowler ran in, and suddenly rather than heading down his over-the-wicket path, he bowled around the wicket. Bashar was stunned, nearly took the ball on his gloves but it hit the top of his bat-handle.

"What was that?" Bashar asked.

"You will play a lot of first-class and Test cricket. These things will happen once in a while", was the response from the other end.

Bashar smiled and went back to facing the next bowler.

In reality, the senior fast bowler had missed his run-up, so just for the sake of it, he bowled from the other side. He was known for his quirky side, so Bashar didn't mind.

That was a one-off funny incidemt but across the country, cricketers did try to figure out the longer version in those days. Some thought batting with a heavier bat would help them, others felt a lighter bat would give them the advantage. Those in Rajshahi figured it was fitness that would help them during a hot four-day match. Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet banked on their flair and talent, but that didn't last long.

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The promise of the NCL gave away far too quickly. Within a few seasons, it began to be referred as picnic cricket by players who would simply turn up for the matches and go through the motions. The money involved in the NCL was much less than what they earned in the Dhaka Premier League, the country's most important competition for decades.

The intensity too was vastly underwhelming in the first-class tournament. While the one-day format of the Dhaka Premier League had players facing pressure on a daily basis, there was a deafening silence while playing a first-class game. Those running the divisional teams were unsure what to tell the players even if they did badly. For places like Barisal, the same players continued for many years because there was no local talent being developed. When the talent pool dried up in Chittagong and Sylhet, the administrators hardly bothered.

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It was expected that Bangladesh's Test team would benefit from the domestic first-class scene but it was the Dhaka Premier League and recently the BCB's youth programmes that have had the most impact.

Bangladesh didn't have the advantage that Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe had - both countries played long-version cricket for a while before they played their first Tests in 1982 and 1992 respectively.

Sri Lanka didn't actually get official first-class status for their domestic matches until the late 1980s - i.e. long after they had got Test status. The premier tournament, called the Sara Trophy, did not get first-class status until the 1987/88 season. Before that Zimbabwe had three-day matches, played largely among the same teams that became first-class clubs. Additionally, because of its geographic location, Sri Lanka would often get foreign teams to visit and play cricket and those were considered first-class matches, while when a Sri Lankan team went overseas, those matches were also considered first-class.

In Zimbabwe, although the Logan Cup has been played since around 1903, it only became a first-class competition after Zimbabwe gained Test status in 1992 (so the first first-class Logan Cup came only after Zimbabwe were a Test nation). Prior to this it was not a first-class competition, but it did feature multi-innings long-form cricket. While the question on when cricket was introduced in Zimbabwe remains a debate, most people seem to think that the first game was played in 1890 when the white colonial settlers arrived in the country. Ever since cricket has been played regularly in various centres.

It's important to note that while the Logan Cup itself wasn't designated as a first class competition until Zimbabwe were already a Test nation, the Zimbabweans had been playing first-class cricket regularly and of a high standard through the 1980s as counties such as Middlesex and Leicestershire visited the country, along with teams such as Pakistan International Airlines, Young West Indies, Young Australia and Sri Lanka in first-class games. Before 1980, Zimbabwe (or Rhodesia as it was then known) took part in South Africa's Currie Cup, and those games were first-class matches. So when they gained independence the same year, they faced a huge question: whether to stay in South Africa's domestic first-class cricket competition - and risk apartheid-related isolation along with them - or to go their own way and exit the Currie Cup. They chose the latter.

The feeling from the players who made up Zimbabwe's first Test team is that, while they think the cricket the provinces played in the country was of a decent standard, these first-class games against visiting sides were vital to the development of the national team. Some of the internationals who visited included Dean Jones, Bruce Reid, Courtney Walsh, Jeff Dujon and Malcolm Marshall.

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In the late 2000s, the BCB decided to pick teams instead of asking the divisions to do it themselves, in a bid to even out the strength of the squads. It backfired - the sense of competition within the teams reduced as players were not representing their regions, and hence cared less for the team and more for their own performance.

In 2013, the then BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal inducted all first-class players into a salary scheme and began the Bangladesh Cricket League, a more refined regional first-class competition. Created to spice up the first-class scene, the BCL has provided for a higher quality of cricket than the NCL.

Yet, there remains very little trust in players even if they put up a good show in the domestic circuit. A player either has to come with an age-group tag or has to prove himself in the A team, who rarely play.

Indeed, Bangladesh's first-class scene is yet to impart value to cricketers. It is in place, and there is hope that in the next five years the BCL will take over as the most important domestic tournament. But unless it produces one cricketer who transitions serenely into the Test team, the first-class scene will continue to be called picnic cricket.

With additional inputs from Andrew Fidel Fernando and Liam Brickhill