|| CF Correspondent ||
Groundsmen and security guards of Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium are doing their duty instead of lockdown across the whole country given by the government.
The national stadium is maintained by 15 groundsman while 25 security guards are there for guarding, while Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram and Sylhet International Cricket Stadium is maintained by five to six groundsman.
Despite the alarming situation in the country, where BCB already postponed all cricketing activities and told every official to work from home, the groundsman and the security guards are still on their duty. BCB Grounds Committee Manager Abdul Baten told to a leading newspaper on Wednesday that they are deploying man in the different venues with the limited resources due to this coronavirus pandemic situation and their head curator is still in Bangladesh and trying to maintain the stadium despite the coronavirus threat.
“We are trying to manage our venues with limited manpower because if we don’t maintain it on a regular basis it will put us in a big problem,” said Baten.
“We have around fifteen groundsman at SBNCS while there are five to six groundsman working respectively in Sylhet and Chattogram,” he said.
“Apart from that we have our head curator in Bangladesh and they are instructing them (groundsman) as they are trying to maintain the stadium and staying here despite the coronavirus pandemic,” he said.
Sri Lankan Gamini de Silva is in-charge of SBNCS while Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium and Sylhet International Cricket Stadium is curated by Praveen Hinganikar and Sanjeev Agarwal respectively.
Groundsman are also facing hard time finding meals time to time which was provided by the BCB, which is now closed because of the alarming threat of the virus. However, they said that they don't have enough work to do at this time.
“Now we don’t have much work to do. We just spray water in the ground because otherwise the grass will go brown (rotten),” said a groundsman on request of anonymity.
“15 members are working in our section. We live in bachelor mess and cook food by ourselves,” he said.
“The main difficulty we are facing is in managing meals. We are cooking by ourselves in academy,” he said while security members echoed the same sentiment.
BCB always remained beside their stakeholders which includes cricketers and groundsman, during this crisis. BCB gave one-time monetary assistance to both contractual and non-contractual women cricketers.
BCB President Nazmul Hassan Papon said that they will grant one month’s wage for the groundsmen also.
A total of 200 groundsmen are working for BCB, among them 90 groundsmen are working on permanent contract who are getting twelve thousand four hundred taka while the rest, who are working on a temporary basis are getting eleven thousand taka per month.
