BCB INVESTIGATING CHRIS GAYLE’S OMISSION IN BPL 2015 ELIMINATOR
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) revived their T20 tournament, Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) two years after it was halted in the wake of match-fixing scandals. To counter corruption during the event, the Board took precautionary measures and as a result, it was a much cleaner event this season.
However, after the completion of the BPL 2015, there are few controversial issues yet to be cleared out. Star recruit of Barisal Bulls, Chris Gayle’s omission in the second Eliminator game against Rangpur Riders on December 13 is one of those.
This season, Gayle joined Barisal side late in the tournament and played only four games. In this tournament, the southpaw was making a comeback into competitive cricket after his back surgery. Gayle scored 139 runs from four innings which included an unbeaten match-winning 92 against Chittagong Vikings in a league game. But he was left out of the side in Barisal’s next encounter on December 10 against Dhaka Dynamites.
Meanwhile eyebrows were raised when Gayle was not included in the playing eleven of Barisal Bulls in their knock-out game against Rangpur Riders. Barisal franchise co-owner Rizwan bin Farouk confirmed, the West Indian had a back pain that day and it kept him out of the field. But the BCB is taking no chances and decided to investigate this issue.
“There is one issue which they [BCB’s anti-corruption unit] are already working on. It is about Chris Gayle’s [non] appearance in the semi-final [Qualifier]. There is some discussion about it. We are looking into it. I am not saying there was anything untoward but we are investigating the matter,” BCB president Nazmul Hassan said in a press conference at Dhaka on Sunday evening.
BPL’s Governing Council Chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha also confirmed this decision. Talking with a Bengali Daily, Sinha said, “We have to examine if there was any other motive in this regard. We have to find out why Gayle wasn’t played. We will investigate the matter after the tournament. They could have let us know earlier. The BCB physio and doctors could have looked after the problem. But they didn’t tell us.”
“We heard that he won’t be playing a little while before the match began, and that he will be leaving [the country]. If he had an injury, he wouldn’t be able to field the full game yesterday [December 12]. It would have been revealed on the field,” he further added.
In the earlier editions of BPL, controversies had been part and parcels of this tournament. It hurt the image of this league badly. Thus the authorities are taking no chance and investigating all the questionable issues.
source: cricwizz
