Despite their own bleak future, Bangladesh cricketers kept continuing their support for the people affected by the deadly coronavirus.
Apart from some star players, no cricketers in this country have a certain future as they largely depend on the domestic leagues, which was adversely affected by the COVID-19 that killed more than 100,000 people in the world and the death toll is still counting.
The Dhaka Premier League (DPL), the country’s most coveted league which provides the bread and butter for most of the local cricketers was postponed due to the outbreak of coronavirus after the first round.
With the deadly virus spreading like wildfire in Bangladesh, the future of the DPL of this season is uncertain. There is no guarantee that the cricketers will get the full amount from the clubs if the league is not held in this year.
Sensing the players embarrassing situation, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has already provided one-time monetary support for the non-contractual male and female layers, worth BDT 30,000 and BDT 20,000 respectively.
This sum of money however is not enough for a local player to support his/her family throughout the year. They indeed support their family throughout a year by playing the DPL and other domestic tournaments like BCL, NCL, BPL.
But when their future looks entirely bleak, they didn’t show any reluctance to come up with the help for the vulnerable people.
Firstly a group of star players, a total of 27 cricketers – 17 with BCB contracts and 10 who have played for the national team not too long ago – donated half of their monthly salary to the coronavirus fund and the amount was approximately BDT 26 lakh.
Afterward, 91 first-class cricketers from the country’s domestic circuit had decided to come forward and donated half of their monthly salary to the corona fund which is handled by CWAB.
Lastly, Bangladesh’s world cup winning under-19 cricketers and officials have decided to donate BDT 2.5 lakh to the fund accumulating by CWAB to fight against coronavirus pandemic.
There is no reason to think that the financial capability of the players who donated the money is good enough. In fact, a good number of players, who had already donated the money is not that wealthy but they didn’t back out.
Apart from donating the money, the players also kept them busy in creating awareness amongst the people through social media outlets.
“It is our social responsibility to come forward to help the people as the country and the whole world is in great danger now due to the coronavirus pandemic,” the country’s fast bowler Rubel Hossain told the BSS.
“We, the players, tried our best to do. The financial capability of all the players is not the same but that didn’t prevent them from doing something good for the people and we won’t back out to do something whenever the opportunity comes.”
BCB has postponed all cricketing activities from the middle of last month due to the coronavirus pandemic, and it is not sure when things would be back to normal as the COVID-19 situation is becoming worse around the world with each passing day.
To date, Bangladesh reported 482 cases infected by coronavirus and confirmed 30 deaths. Globally 1,631, 310 cases are reported as of now with the death toll rising to 100, 376.
