'Have You Seen Nayak?': Shakib Al Hasan Claims He'll Revamp BPL Citing Example of Popular Bollywood Movie

Shakib Al Hasan has criticised the organisers of the Bangladesh Premier League for not doing enough to promote the T20 tournament in the country and called it a ‘big’ marketing failure while claiming he can revamp it in two-three months if given charge.

BPL, a professional T20 league, was launched by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) in 2012 beginning with six franchises which and has since added one more team.

While speaking to reporters, Shakib, the leading wicket-taker in BPL history, claimed that there was never a real intention to popularise the tournament citing the current state.

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“There is no market (for BPL) because we could not create a market for it because if we could add value to it certainly this market would have been a big one. You won’t find any remote area where cricket is not played. You go to the remotest area and even there people play cricket with a bat and a ball. So it is not a fact that it doesn’t have popularity. So it is difficult to believe there is no market in a country with the population of 16 to 20 Crore where the sport has such a popularity. So this is a big failure from a marketing point of view because that is the reason we could not create a market like it (IPL),” he added.

Shakib claimed that if he’s made BPL CEO, it won’t take much time for him to set things in order.

“If I am given the responsibility of BPL’s CEO, I will not take a long time to make everything right. I think it will take one or two months, maximum two months but even that won’t be required. Two months is a long time,” the 35-year-old said.

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“Have you seen the movie ‘Nayak’ (Bollywood movie)? A lot of things can be done in a day. I would start everything from scratch. Have a new draft and auction. BPL will be held in free time and the modern technology will be made available. There will be a nice broadcast with home and away venues,” he added.

BPL governing council chairman Sheikh Sohel has taken exception to Shakib’s comments.  “As a contracted player he cannot make such a statement. There is a BPL governing council for judging this and because he made such a statement let us hear it straight (from him) and later we will respond,” Sohel was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

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