Bangladesh: That was a 'bad' year that was (1 January 1999)

1 January 1999

Bangladesh: That was a 'bad' year that was

Nizamuddin Ahmed

'Bad', not as in Michael Jackson's 'Bad'. Emphatically speaking, 1998 was not a good year for our sport. Despite the lump of cow-dung, the good news is that yearend stocktaking can be easy if there is not much in the pile.

Cricket-wise, surfing on the crest of the ICC Trophy euphoria from the year before, we fell on all fours in English meadows and Scottish dales last summer, and made an ass of ourselves against Northern Ireland (do they play cricket?) at the Commonwealth Games. We were so eager to lose to the Test-playing countries that we forgot to win against the secondary. As for our status in World cricket, we are fighting for breath in the tertiary lane.

We concluded a disastrous year by having to pay heavily to watch the G-9 play on our own front-yard. In the Wills Trophy at the Bangabandhu, we were grounded. We also paid heavily in terms of national pride and the inability to avail of the experience of the much-illustrated visitors. That one extra game that the organisers could not fit into the 'busy' schedule of Test teams was played at the BKSP against England. Surprisingly, to a packed house of ten thousand Savarians and some pilgrims from the city, we did quite well against Hollioake and Company.

Belated over-zealousness with the England-bound World Cup team almost cost us also the Dhaka cricket league. We had already lost football. Sincerity on the part of all concerned played well to swerve a careering BCB from the brink of a deep ravine called 'ego'.

Wonder why we are discussing cricket first when anyone knows that football had traditionally ruled Bangladesh sport. Well, in the past year, there was practically no football. The Dhaka Football League, the very life that made Bangabandhu (erstwhile Dhaka) Stadium the heart of our national sports, never got off the launching pad in 1998 due to the insistence of football clubs and players, and the football federation (BFF) that the Bangabandhu was a 'must' if football was to thrive. Plans to hold the Bangabandhu (international) Football Cup also went up in smoke.

Bangabandhu Stadium was the apple of discord between the two most powerful games. The cricket board (BCB), because of its ICC success and World Cup 1999 qualification, earned its right of use. BCB became the nation's golden boy after the ICC triumph and the Bangabandhu was given exclusively to cricket for its World Cup preparations.

This offered football the alternative to play at the Mirpur stadium but the popular football clubs, citing poor crowd and insecurity there, put their foot down. They wanted to play at the Bangabandhu and nowhere else. The National Sports Council (NSC) offered both BCB and the BFF the Fatullah carrot by announcing that a new stadium would be built there. One BFF official was quoted as saying, "Stadiums can be built anywhere, but we will play football at the Bangabandhu". In fact, BFF will be given the National No. 1 stadium from May after the cricketers leave for England.

While the nation is quite pleased to shun football and pamper cricket in view of the impending World Cup, any amount of dismal performance in England will ricochet on cricket and the Bangabandhu will be handed over on a silver platter to football.

The only football seen last year was the tail of the 1997 football league. Muktijoddha Sangsad broke a quarter-century of Mohammedan-Abahani shackle to lift the championship in style. Only to prove it was no accident or a result of anybody's clemency, the red-and-whites went on to bring home the prestigious IFA Shield from India. Over the years, Brothers Union had shown flickers of promise and had often seriously threatened the MSC-AKC domain but Muktis showed it was possible.

Hockey showed promise somewhere down the year. But, in the end, it was sunk as deep as the Titanic, another highlight of the year. Consuming over two dozen goals in four matches at the Asian Games has taught us a lesson or two, if not hockey.

The problem is every Bangladeshi participating in international tournaments abroad utters the cliché - they are going in it for 'the experience'. What an utterly expensive exercise! What can weightlifters, boxers, swimmers, golfers, athletes or, for that matter, anyone learn from participating in competitions abroad that they cannot possibly learn at home from top-grade coaches? And by sheer sweating? International sport is no roller coaster that you have to ride on it to feel the thrill. Abebe Bikila (1932-1973) did not need any experience or exposure before the lanky Ethiopian won the Olympic marathon, and in bare foot too.

There has also been some activity in other federations. Most of the events were held in a lacklustre manner and were means for federation officials to justify their very existence.

As in the past, foreign players have featured for local teams in cricket, hockey and chess tournaments. Barring chess, the aliens have dominated events in the other two. Perhaps not as much true for hockey as for cricket, that playing with the better players from abroad have helped to raise the confidence of our boys.

A welcome relief in 1998 was the historic democratisation of the sports arena. Elections were held to all major federations and a few minor ones. The National Sports Council, the government sports controlling organ, held on the leash by keeping the provision to appoint Presidents in an elected federation. The NSC also nominated one member and, by some googly, two in cricket.

To some extent, the purpose of the sports polls - to elect suitable persons to run the federations - was defeated when councillors of the District Sports Associations formed a forum. By sheer number, they demanded of the coteries that had been governing each federation for years a certain number of positions in the new committee. Consensus single panel was the order of the day and, in federations (cricket, badminton) where elections were contested between two opposing panels, the panel, which had the support of the districts, won hands down. The system decentralised sport to some extent but it excluded some worthy workers and ushered in some opportunists. But then is that not what democracy is all about?

Our passion for sport can to some extent be gauged by the coverage it merits in every newspaper and the electronic media. Our appreciation for quality can be fathomed from the over-filled stands during the Wills. Needless to say, a nation that considers sport a passion yearns for some success from its lads.

So high is our expectations, so thorough our failure, that there seems to be the need for sweeping changes in each ingredient that constitutes our sport. We need changes in the system that govern our sport, not so much in the persons, but in policy matters. We need to ring out the old and bring in the new. Let that be our New Year's resolution. Not be broken on January 2.

Source :: The Bangladesh Daily Star (https://www.dailystarnews.com)