BPL was postponed after the players'association took offense to BCB director's insulting words.
The Cricketers' Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB) has reversed course, agreeing to end the entire boycott that had brought cricket to a halt in Bangladesh in response to statements made by Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) controversial director Nazmul Islam.
The immediate end of the boycott implies that the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) can restart on January 16, after matches were cancelled on January 15 owing to the protest.
“Keeping the greater interest of cricket in mind, we will resume playing tomorrow [today]. They [the BCB] have assured us that they will reach out to him [BCB director M. Nazmul Islam] and fulfill our demands as early as possible,” CWAB president Mohammad Mithun said on Thursday late at night during a joint press conference with BCB director Iftekhar Rahman Mithu.
The cricketer’s association had stated before the press conference that they would only lift the boycott if Najmul Islam publicly apologized and that BCB's decision to remove him from the finance committee earlier in the day was insufficient.
“We welcome the decision to remove BCB director M. Nazmul Islam from the board’s finance committee. Since he has been given a show-cause notice and since the BCB has asked for time due to procedural reasons regarding his directorship, we want to give him that time. However, we hope that the process will continue.
In addition, since Director M. Nazmul Islam has publicly spoken insulting words about the cricketers, we hope that he will publicly apologize. We have informed the BCB that we are ready to return to the game from Friday if he publicly apologizes and the process for his directorship is ongoing,” the CWAB had stated earlier.
The head of the Cricketers' Welfare Association of Bangladesh, Mohammad Mithun, was informed by BCB president Aminul Islam that Najmul Islam was prepared to apologize in a "closed-door" meeting. Still, players were not pleased with this position, according to ESPNCricinfo.
Another late-night meeting between the board, players, and franchise owners revised BCB's plans to permanently postpone the BPL. After the BCB promised to keep taking action against Najmul Islam, the cricket players decided to end their protest.
“A few unfortunate incidents have taken place over the past two days, which is why we were unable to hold today’s BPL matches. The director who made the comments has been removed from his committee [finance committee]. We follow our constitution, and according to it, we have issued a show-cause notice to him.
He has been given 48 hours to respond, which will end at noon on the 17th. Then it will go to the disciplinary committee, as per the constitution, and the process will continue. We tried to contact him throughout the day. We wanted to bring him here, but we couldn’t reach him,” BCB director Iftekhar Rahman Mithu said at the joint press conference.
The BCB, meanwhile, has already shifted the 15 January BL matches to the 16th. The matches for 16 and 17 January will be postponed by a day, and the Eliminator and Qualifier 1 have been shifted from 19 January to 20.
(ANI/ESPNCricinfo inputs)