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Where's the Dhaka cricketer?

Mohammad Isam
Dhaka is the centre of Bangladesh cricket but the country's biggest city is definitely not a big enough provider of cricketers nowadays.
It might be hard to believe but it would be surprising to find a club side having more than one player who was born and brought up in the capital city. Even in the current national team, Mohammad Ashraful is the only player from Dhaka while the rest of the team is a result of cricket high-up’s decentralisation concept.
The 1997 boom in Bangladesh cricket had a defining affect to the players who come through from the different districts. Bangladesh Cricket Board was slow to move at first but once the age-group tournaments were held, the districts began to churn out cricketers in large numbers.
While that has worked as pan of BCB's development programme, the side effect has definitely been the shortage of the Dhaka cricketer.
It is disappointing to find such a dearth and
experts consider enough reasons for this phenomenon to continue. Background, educational curriculum, distractions and a definite lack of grounds make cricket a very difficult choice as a career.
According to former national captain Roquibul Hassan, the social backdrop in the capital city comes as a major hindrance for the aspiring Dhaka cricketer.
"People who stay in Dhaka are affluent and privileged. The parents are not convinced that cricket can be a career. Apart from this, the kind of curriculum they get in school is stressful and as a result the boys don't get enough time for cricket," said Roquibul.
Roquibul, currently on duty as a match referee in Bogra, thinks that apart from the parents' pressure to perform in studies and the children having way too many distractions, the lack of space also plays a huge part.
"There used to be schools that used to give importance to cricket but now, with the pressure of admitting extra amount of students, they tend to build buildings in the open grounds which was used for sports," added the genial Roquibul.
Another former national cricketer Tanjib Ahsan Saad who holds a fair idea of domestic cricketers having been involved with Surjo Tarun for more than a decade, also considers the lack of cricket grounds as an obstacle.
"Look where the players come from these days: Rajshahi, Jessore, Khulna. They have lots of grounds that hold tournaments all year round Rajshahi has three or four big cricket centres where each year they produce a lot of players," said Saad, now the manager of Bangladesh Under-19 team.
"It is very difficult to produce cricketers when there are fewer grounds. Where's the space in Dhaka? Not even one per cent of schools have their own playground.
"Even if someone wants to play, he has to join a cricket academy just like coaching centres that students join. But most of the good cricketers from age-group cricket hardly
stick to cricket. They pursue education. Hardly anyone can balance playing cricket and studying at the same time these days," said Saad.
Both former players, so deeply involved in the domestic game, pointed out that players from the district know that they have to hit the ground hard when they come to Dhaka to play cricket They live without their near ones and have to stay out of home for several months as they stay in insalubrious club houses in Dhaka. Most take hard blows and only have cricket as a career option in their youth.
But for those who play cricket and live in Dhaka, it's also a hard practice. One such professional keenly pointed out enough reasons to believe that the Dhaka players have a hard time. Most Dhaka players are marginalised in their own den simply because more emphasis is being given to players from outside.
"Basically, cricket officials cannot trust Dhaka players but at the same time, find district players more hard-working. Definitely the players who come from outside of Dhaka play more cricket than we do," he said. "But these players do not come to Dhaka all alone. They come in a group and as a result, look after themselves quite well," he added.
"Dhaka players have a lot of faults, mainly their attitude towards one another. But what really hurts our cricketing progress is the fewer number of cricket grounds in the city. We hardly get to use the bigger cricket grounds during the offseason," he said.
Both schools of thought show that while the societal situation stands as a major obstacle, club officials and the players themselves have to take responsibility for this shortage.
Once it was almost unthinkable to find a national team without players from the capital but now, it's becoming hard to even Gt them in a club team.
But hope remains with the emergence of various cricket academies and with a slight change in attitude from all parties concerned, it could breath new life into the Dhaka cricketer.