Aminul Huq Mom. General Secret ary of the Bangladesh Cricket control Boa rd (BCCB) ha* sent a rejoinder on Wed nesday. the full text of which follows:

Our. attention has been drawn to the news item pub fished In the Sports Page of your issue dated March 29 1996 under the caption "Singer Cup in Dhaka" has also the leader on the front page of the same Issue entitled Singer f ' Dhafof proposed lo

The said items create an impression that the Singer Cup tournament scheduleo to be held in Singapore between March 1-7. 1996 was pro posed to be staged in Dhaka we want to make it clear this contention is erroneous.

A* explained to your corre spondent by the undersigned BCCB did indeed tn 1994 receive a proposal from a commercial organisation regarding holding of a tournament mvolv Ing leading cricket nations of the sub-continent The proposal was sketchy since the .organiser* did not haw an exact spot in the busy International cricketing calendar Moreover, no specific name of a sponsor was mentioned As such It is a fallacy to conclude that this very same Singer Cup

was slated for Dhaka

H is not correct as contended in the report that BCCB did not put It* heart and soul into materialising this offer. What prevented BCCB from accepting that offer was the severely restricted role of BCCB as proposed. Why even the Singapore Cricket Association is holding the Singer Cup under in own Danner

But we wish to assure cricket lovers that we are alive to the necessity of holding an International Tournament in Dhaka and we plan to organise one during next winter to celebrate the silver jubilee of our Independence Saber Hossain Chowdhury. Vice President. BCCB and promoter of the ongoing Singer Cup has been authorised to make all necessary arrangements on behalf of BCCB.

Therefore. I request your good*eif lo take all necessary steps to publish the content of thi* letter to dispel the confusion.

OUR RESPONSE

With reference to the BCCB statement In para two and three above that our contention i* "erroneous" we would like to quote Saber Chowdhury a BCCB Vice President and an organiser of the Singer Cup. as published In our original story

On the other hand Saber Hossain Chowdhury, one of the organiser* of the aforesaid tournament, when contacted over telephone Mid, If you ask me whether thi* (Singer) i* the

negative."

But when asked if the Singer Cup is the brain-child of the original proposal^Saber^Ho the country, said "You can My

In response to para four above, it Is our humble submission again that if the same organisers, many of them Bangladeshis, could strike a deal with the Singapore Cri eket Association. it is a failure of sort* for BCCB not to have done likewise

The Daily Star sticks to its story

In reply to a question on Wednesday the BCCB General Secretary reiterated that the board would welcome any proposal from anybody to organise an International tourney in Bangladesh under the BCCB banner

It is hoped that with the commitment expressed by the BCCB Bangladesh will soon be host to big time cricket. The purpose of our story was for nothing more