The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Tuesday announced that they were creating a shadow national team named ‘Bangladesh Tigers’.
The activities of the team were disclosed in detail on Wednesday by BCB director Kazi Inam Ahmed, who along with another BCB director Khaled Mahmud will be overseeing this project.
Inam informed that this team will consist of players who are left out of the national team and will be under constant supervision throughout the year.
“Players are often dropped from the national side for their performance, there are players on the fringes who might get the opportunity but are currently not, there are youngsters coming up. This whole program is for taking care of them throughout the year. So that they are never unattended, they are always under continuous practice, they are nurtured and taken care of,” said Inam.
This would mean that BCB would be adding another team in their infrastructure along with the national team, the A team, the high-performance team and the age level teams.
As the activities of this shadow national team and A team are quite similar, there were questions if the A team would be dissolved after this new program comes to life.
But that is not the case as Inam informed that the A team will not be dissolved. Rather, when tours for the A team will be arranged, the shadow national team might be converted to being the A team.
This confuses the veteran cricket coach and current adviser of BKSP Nazmul Abedin Fahim. To him, it would have been better if rather than a new project, the BCB made an effort with the A team.
“This is good that they will be practising throughout the year. To me, the A team comes after the national team. If we said that we would be concentrating more on the A team, we will facilitate them with better training all the time, we will arrange tours for them, to me, that would have been more appropriate,” said Nazmul.
