lOl Tennis

A little known Motiur Rahman will lead a five-member tennis team in the Davis Cup Group-4 qualifier to be held in Jordan from April 5.

The Bangladesh Tennis Federation (BTF) also brought veteran Shibu Lal all the way from the United States to constitute a four-member playing team in the 11-team event, where Bangladesh's participation is more academic than anythingelse.

Bangladesh finished bottom during, the last Group 4 qualifier in Sri Lanka.

The other members of the team are Amol Roy, who crossed the first round barrier at the recent

Bangladesh Junior International Tennis Championship, Murad Hossain of BKSP and Alamgir Hossain.

But the appointment of Motiur as non-playing captain has raised certain eyebrows because he has little to speak of in terms of his tennis credential. The man from Rajshahi has never come into the limelightatthe national tennis level.

While Motiur's appointment is dubious to say the least, the reliance on Shibu Lal exposes the lack of tennis talent available in the country.

Bangladesh never excelled in tennis at any stage and thcsccnario seems to be heading in the wrong direction since NSC's director of planning Nurul Haq Prodhan took over as BTF secretary after the elected body was abolished nearly 19 months ago.

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It was reported that Prodhan has brought in some street urchins for training as part of an innovative ideal. May be the exercise will produce the right results in future.

But at the moment it will be damage limitation for Shibu Lal's men against UAE, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Brunei, Iraq, Kyrgistan, Turkmenstan and hosts Jordan.

The Bangladesh team will fly to Jordanian capitalAmman onApril 5.