The Sound of Silence: Stories of Cricket's Invisible Workers

Some stories begin not with a kick, but with a river remembering a boy. Last week at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Dhaka, on the fourth day of the first Test between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, I noticed something that appears nowhere on the scoreboard. After the match, when the players had returned to the dressing room, an elderly curator remained seated beside the pitch. He held a small notebook and was slowly writing — likely notes on tomorrow's pitch condition, moisture, grass height. In 21 years of covering cricket, I have watched thousands of matches, but this scene stopped me. His name never appears on any broadcast, his photograph never makes the front page. Yet every ball that bounces on that pitch carries the touch of his hands on every blade of grass. In Bangladesh, cricket is not merely a sport — it is an industry, an ecosystem. From Dhaka to Chattogram, Sylhet to Khulna — behind every stadium lies a group of invisible workers. They are groundskeepers, scorers, curators, kit managers, local coaches, even the elderly woman selling tea outside the stadium who has been stirring sugar into cricket lovers' cups for 30 years. Without their labor, this vast spectacle of cricket would be impossible. But the sad truth is that their labor never enters the broadcast camera's frame. When I traveled to Kolkata in 2017to cover the U-17 World Cup final, England beat Spain 5-2. Phil Foden scored twice. But the image that remains most etched in my mind from that match is this — after the match ended, a ball boy who had been collecting balls throughout the match sat alone in a corner of the gallery. There were tears in his eyes. Because the match was over, his work was over, and tomorrow he would not need to come to this ground again. I began writing the stories of cricket's invisible workers from that moment. According to Bangladesh Cricket Board statistics, the number of registered cricketers in the country is approximately 50,000. But nobody knows the number of coaches, trainers, and groundskeepers working behind them. Outside Dhaka, in villages and small towns, those who teach cricket on small grounds survive on 5,000 to 10,000 taka a month. Some of their students go on to play for the national team, but no one remembers the coach's name. I once visited Sylhet to meet a local coach. His name was Abdul Karim, age 62. He had been teaching cricket in villages across Sylhet for 40 years. Three of his students played first-class cricket. I asked him, do you ever go to the stadium to watch national team matches? He smiled and said, 'I don't go. Tickets are expensive. And if I go, my boys will get nervous seeing me while playing. I watch from home. On TV.' That night I understood something. Cricket's greatest strength lies not in its stars, but in the invisible people behind them — those who sell their own dreams to build others' dreams. When the match ends and the stadium lights go out, what remains? An empty chair, a lost ball, an unblown whistle. Cricket's beauty lies not only in its sound but in its silence. I do not count trophies; I count the moments when a boy forgets the score and remembers the game. When the whistle finally rests, what remains is not the result but the breath. Cricket is not just a game, it is a memory. And on every page of that memory is written the name of an invisible worker.