Bangladesh Cricket Board(BCB) and Ekushey Television Limited (ETV) have entered into a long term plan to work together on the development of cricket in Bangladesh.

At a signing ceremony today in BCB's new premises in Gulshan Dhaka, BCB and ETV announced that the five year agreement is aimed at encouraging and popularizing cricket at both grass root and national level.

Under the terms of the agreement, BCB requires ETV to produce a wide and comprehensive range of cricket related programmes that will include but not be limited to coaching and teaching series. ETV will also provide extensive coverage to domestic cricket matches at both national and regional level and also cover a number of important domestic matches "live". For it's part, BCB will grant ETV exclusive rights within Bangladesh only to many of its matches, events and series.

"I strongly believe that television and the electronic media can and will play a critical role in both promoting and popularizing participation in the sport of cricket in Bangladesh, especially amongst young people. BCB is delighted that ETV, Bangladesh's first private national terrestrial network with a proven and impressive commitment to the promotion of cricket, have come forward to partner us in this very important task", Saber H. Chowdhury, President Bangladesh Cricket Board said following the signing ceremony. "This is a huge step forward for the development of cricket in Bangladesh and the possibilities are as exciting as they are immense. I am extremely pleased".

Mr. Abu Sayed Mahmud, Chairman of Ekushey Television said: "This is a demonstration of our commitment to Bangladesh sport. We believe very strongly that the great national passion of cricket is something that should be shared by people in every corner of our country." He added, "We share the nation's great joy and pleasure in the growing success of our national cricket team over past few years and we congratulate BCB President Saber H. Chowdhury for his visionary and inspirational leadership in this regard, as well as Directors and the whole team at the Bangladesh Cricket Board for working so very hard to secure Test Status for our country. ETV is delighted and proud to be able to work alongside an organization such as the BCB in the important task that lies ahead". ETV has already covered many of Bangladesh major cricket events and only recently provided live daily coverage of Bangladesh's overseas Test Tour to Zimbabwe.

Directors of Bangladesh Cricket Board attended the signing ceremony which was also attended by Simon Dring and Farhad Mahmud, the Managing Directors of ETV, Nawazish Ali Khan, ETV's Head of Programmes and Sayyied Kabir, General Manager in Charge of Business Development for the Network.

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