Bangladesh star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan criticized the organizers of the Bangladesh Premier League for not doing enough to promote the T20 tournament in the country and called it a major marketing failure while claiming he can revamp it in two-three months if given a charge.
He made a reference to the Bollywood movie ‘Nayak’ in a scathing criticism of his own country’s cricket board. In the movie, Shivaji Rao (Anil Kapoor), a news reporter is challenged by the chief minister to run the state for a day and solve the problems facing it.
“If they made me the BPL CEO, it would take me one or two months to correct everything. You have seen the movie Nayak right? If you want to do something, you can do it in one day, I would do the players’ draft and auction (on time) and hold the BPL during a free time. We will have all the modern technologies. There will be quality broadcast and home and away venues.” Shakib was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
There is no market for BPL: Shakib Al Hasan
BPL, a professional T20 league, was launched by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) in 2012 beginning with six franchises, and has since added one more team. Shakib is the leading wicket-taker in BPL history, he claimed that there was never a real intention to popularize the tournament.
“There is no market (for BPL) because we could not create a market for it because if we could add value to it certainly this market would have been a big one. You won’t find any remote area where cricket is not played. You go to the remotest area and even there people play cricket with a bat and a ball. So it is not a fact that it doesn’t have popularity.”
“So it is difficult to believe there is no market in a country with a population of 16 to 20 Crore where the sport has such popularity. So this is a big failure from a marketing point of view because that is the reason we could not create a market like it (Indian T20 League),” he added.
