It took more than two weeks for Bangladesh’s cricket board to finally form a special investigation committee to investigate the causes for the country’s disastrous ICC ODI World Cup campaign in India.
The three-person committee, led by Enayet Hossain Siraj and including Mahbubul Anam and former captain Akram Khan, will “scrutinise the factors contributing to the team’s underperformance in the tournament,” according to a Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) press release issued yesterday.
Bangladesh placed eighth out of ten teams in the tournament, winning only two of their nine matches, falling far short of the goal set by the team’s management prior to the huge event: a first-ever semi-finals berth.
Akram stated that they will first meet with everyone associated with the World Cup squad before filing the report, which has no timeframe.
“Because we have a series against New Zealand, everyone is unavailable.” So, I believe it will take some time for us to communicate with everyone,” Akram said yesterday to The Daily Star.
This is not the first time the BCB, chaired by Nazmul Hassan, has attempted to investigate a major event catastrophe, having previously appointed a two-member committee following the T20 World Cup in 2021.
However, the board never revealed any of the conclusions submitted by Enayet and BCB director Jalal Yunus, who is currently the chairman of cricket operations.
“In the past, despite the formation of fact-finding committees, no significant results were observed.” “However, this time our board president has given us strict instructions to dig deep and find out the exact reasons behind the World Cup debacle,” Akram added.
“We had high hopes for this World Cup, but we fell short miserably.” We will analyse everything, both on and off the pitch, before filing the final report, having witnessed some unfavourable situations before and during the World Cup.”
It is intriguing that all three members of the inquiry committee are BCB directors who serve on the board in various capacities: Enayet is the BCB’s Working Committee chairman, Mahbubul is the BCB’s Grounds Committee chairman, and former captain Akram is the BCB’s Facilities Committee chairman.
This contrasts with the aftermath of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, when Bangladesh lost all of their games, including one against Canada. Commodore (retd) Mujibur Rahman and Syed Shamim Ahsan were appointed to a two-member inquiry committee by the cricket administration at the time.
That report, which was produced after speaking with all important parties, is still regarded as an excellent fact-finding report that helped Bangladesh cricket rise from the ashes.
Will the three-member committee be able to act freely this time, without any external interference from BCB? Or will the cause(s) of yet another World Cup calamity be conveniently ignored?