No, Your Taxes Do Not Pay Litton or Shanto

Whenever a Bangladesh national cricketer scores a duck, a bowler concedes a 20-run over, or the batting lineup collapses in a chase, whether on the world stage or in a routine bilateral series, the national outrage machine kicks into gear without missing a beat. Keyboards across the country clatter with venomous indignation. The comment sections flood with a recurring refrain: “We pay for their salaries with our hard-earned tax money, and this is how they repay us?” Others demand that Nazmul Hossain Shanto or Litton Das have their contracts terminated on the spot and be dispatched to the nearest paddy field to do “real work.”
It is a dramatic, moralising lament. There is only one fatal problem with this patriotic grievance: it is entirely fabricated. If you are a taxpayer in Bangladesh, exactly zero poisha of your income tax, value-added tax, or customs duty goes into the pockets of national cricketers or the operating accounts of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). The belief that public tax money subsidises the national team is one of the most stubborn, widely repeated economic fallacies in the country.
Bangladesh Cricket Board is not a government ministry. It is a financially autonomous sports governing body that operates independently of the national revenue budget. The government does not allocate state funds to keep BCB afloat, nor does it hand out taxpayer money to meet the monthly payroll of centrally contracted cricketers. In reality, BCB is a commercial powerhouse that generates every taka it spends through its global sports business.

According to the board’s financial disclosures, BCB generated an operating income of Tk507.58 crore (~$42 million) in the 2022-23 fiscal year alone, finishing with an operating surplus of over Tk151 crore. Far from begging the national treasury for subsidies, the board sits on fixed-deposit savings (FDRs) exceeding Tk500 to Tk600 crore parked across commercial banks. The interest generated on these deposits alone, regularly north of Tk40 to Tk50 crore annually, is enough to cover the payroll of every centrally contracted cricketer and domestic player several times over.
So, if not from the public purse, who actually pays the national team? A closer look at the balance sheet reveals four primary engines. Firstly, the bulk of the board’s revenue originates outside Bangladesh’s borders. Under International Cricket Council’s revenue cycle, Bangladesh commands 4.46% of ICC’s global commercial pool. That translates to roughly $26 to $27 million (over Tk300 crore) paid directly into BCB’s coffers every year by global cricket governance. Secondly, another chunk comes from media and broadcasting rights. Domestic and international television rights are sold through competitive bidding to private broadcast networks and marketing agencies. Multimillion-dollar broadcast contracts fund home bilateral tours. Thirdly, private corporations, telecom giants, beverage partners, and FMCG brands pay tens of crores to place their logos on national team kits, which is called corporate sponsorship. And finally, franchise entry fees, title sponsorships and broadcast packages from Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) generate a central surplus each season. Every single match fee, performance bonus, business-class flight and retainer comes from television networks, global sponsors, ICC and stadium gate tickets.
So, the irony runs even deeper: cricketers do not consume your tax money; instead, they are among the country’s most reliable individual taxpayers. Top-tier cricketers are among National Board of Revenue’s (NBR) highest individual tax-card holders in the celebrity category, routinely handing over tens of millions of taka in direct income tax to the national exchequer. In other words, national cricketers contribute directly to funding public roads, bridges and hospitals. The keyboard warriors berating them do not contribute a single poisha to their cricket salaries.
As supporters, fans have every right to critique technical flaws or express frustration over mediocre on-field results. Fans invest emotional equity, buy tickets and spend their time watching. However, invoking the "taxpayer card" as a weapon to demand cricketers be humiliated in paddy fields is not passion; it is uneducated entitlement. It is born of a refusal to understand basic organisational finance. Bangladesh cricketers are professional athletes employed by a commercially self-reliant sporting entity. Critique their footwork, condemn their temperament and demand better standards. But stop claiming you pay them through tax. You do not.