An International Cricket Council (ICC) pair has just spent three busy days in Dhaka, trying to work out exactly where Bangladesh cricket stands after a turbulent spring. Dr Mohammed Moosajee and Tavengwa Mukuhlani, both ICC directors, flew in on 1 June and, according to an ICC release, spoke with “a range of stakeholders to review developments linked to the BCB”.
First things first: national elections for the Bangladesh Cricket Board are pencilled in for 7 June. The new ad-hoc committee, headed by former national captain Tamim Iqbal, is running the show until then. Moosajee and Mukuhlani met Tamim and the rest of that temporary board on day one, then sat down with the election commissioners charged with delivering next week’s poll.
The pair also heard from men who wanted nothing to do with the new order. A number of directors who quit the previous board met the delegation on 2 June; Asif Akbar and Ahsan Iqbal Chowdhury, who did not resign, joined a separate discussion. Nothing public has been said about what those groups told the ICC, but one former president has already gone on the record.
Aminul Islam, who led the board until April and still believes he is its rightful head, later told local media that he and his colleagues had asked cricket’s global governing body to ignore any election “conducted by or under the authority of the ad-hoc committee on 7 June or at any other time”. He also wants the temporary board to correct what he calls an inaccurate 31 May press release about the ICC visit. So, another knot for Moosajee and Mukuhlani to unpick when they report back to the ICC hierarchy.
Away from the cricket offices, the legal wrangling continues. Bangladesh’s High Court on Monday threw out a writ petition that questioned both the election timetable and the current voter list. Justices Bhishmadev Chakrabortty and Md Ashif Hasan ruled that the paperwork had not been filed correctly. The petition, lodged on 18 May, followed the sports ministry’s 7 April decision to dissolve the elected board and install Tamim’s eleven-strong interim committee.
What does all this mean? In simple terms, the ICC’s investigators now head home to draw up their notes. Their findings will reach the ICC board “in due course”, and only then will we know whether next week’s ballot gets the all-clear. Administrators in Mirpur insist everything is in order; dissenting directors claim the opposite.
For the players, coaches and supporters, the priority remains clear: a functioning board that can focus on cricket rather than courtrooms and committee rooms. The next seven days should tell us whether that wish is any closer to becoming reality.
