BCB Academy Cup begins

The trophy for the BCB Academy Cup 2021 was unveiled on Friday in a program at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium Academy building premises, where Bangladesh Twenty20 internationals skipper Mahmudullah Riyad was present.

Bangladesh Cricket Board are arranging this tournament after two years to find out promising cricketers. It will be in a one-day format, and 96 private academy teams from across the country will participate. Players from the age of 17 to 21 will play in the tournament.

The tournament has two tiers- divisional and national. The champions and runners-up from each division and Dhaka Metro will qualify for the national round, meaning that 16 teams will play in the national round.

The divisional round for Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Dhaka (North) started on Friday. The divisional matches of Dhaka Metro will start on December 21.

The national round of the tournament will start in the second week of January.

BCB has said that their objective is to unearth talents from the grassroots level. And thus, talent scouts and age group national team selectors will be watching the matches and selecting potential cricketers.

Bangladesh T20I skipper Mahmudullah was asked about the Academy Cup and shared his own experience.

“Before I got in the national team, the first academy was formed and I was a part of it. Academy is a good stage before getting into the national side. Two years back, it took place, but then there was Covid-19. As it is happening on a bigger scale this time around, it is a great opportunity for everyone,” he said at the trophy unveiling ceremony on Friday.

Mahmudullah also said that BCB was doing good work regarding facilities for the young guns.

“I think at the end of the day, performance matters. If you perform, you will be under the radar and be provided with the facilities to play in the big leagues. But you also must focus on yourself. How you want to prepare yourself, what your goal is, how you see yourself playing international cricket. These are important. I think the board is doing well in these matters,” the T20I skipper said.

Mahmudullah was in the firing line after the T20 World Cup in UAE and Oman, where Bangladesh lost six out of their eight matches, including a defeat to Scotland.

But he is not backing down yet as Mahmudullah is currently aiming at playing the next T20 World Cup in Australia in 2022.

“Of course, the plan is to play (in the 2022 T20 World Cup). I always like to think about positive things. Yes, we could not play good cricket in the last World Cup and the Pakistan series. But if you look at the whole year, we played very good cricket.

“We won the ODI series against Sri Lanka at home. We won against Australia and New Zealand. So, there are positives. I always believe and am with my team. We have come back from such situations previously, and hopefully, this time too,” he said.

Despite being willing to continue for the next World Cup, Mahmudullah said that he did not know anything about the planning for that event next year.

“Planning is not really my department. It is for those in the (game) development sector or the selectors. Those who are in the management can say better. I can just say from a players’ perspective that we have to think about what happened so that we can improve in such situations in the future. And so we can perform better,” Mahmudullah said on Friday.