Mehrab, the only Bangladeshi player with a one-day international hundred had signed for GrameenPhone to play in the first ever Corporate Cricket Lea-gue(CCL). However, another team in the competition Acme Laboratories claimed that the right-hander had taken Tk 15,000 in advance from them as assurance that he would appear for Acme in the CCL well before he had joined Grameen. Acme lodged a complaint with the CCL's organising committee in this regard.

Chairman of the committee Khondokar Jamiluddin placed the case during yesterday's board meeting where the decision to punish Mehrab was taken.

"On the basis of the complaint from Acme, I had set a time for hearing for Mehrab today morning at the BCB's Navana Tower office. However, he never arrived.

'I went through all the papers submitted by Acme including a voucher of Tk 15,000 paid to Mehrab and found no reason to doubt their claim. The board acted on the organising committee's recommendation," informed Jamiluddin during the players' registration for the CCL at the Bangabandhu National Stadium in the afternoon.

Yesterday's registration was dominated by cellular company CityCell who appeared for the first time. MM Ispahani and Partex Group also bolstered their teams with some key signings just a day ahead of the tournament's kick-off.

CityCell went on a recruiting spree and put 19 cricketers under contract including Test regulars and national pool members Rajin Saleh and paceman Tapas Baishya.

Mohammad Moniruzzaman, top run-getter in last season's Dhaka Premier Division League and seamer Alamgir Kabir were the other star names to join CityCell. Another exciting addition in their line-up was hard-hitting Under-19 batsman Nazimuddin.

Meanwhile Tigers skipper Habibul Bashar and Test opener Hannan Sarker both opted for Acme.

Partex Group confirmed the services of seasoned campaigner Javed Omar, who is expected to return to the Test fold after a long injury lay-off.

The first to arrive at the temporary registration centre at BNS' conference room was the evergreen Minhazul Abedin. Behind him came a host of fellow Chittagong players who followed the ex-Bangladesh skipper to pledge their loyalty to MM Ispahani Ltd.

ARAF Apparels signed opening batsman Ehsanul Haque and lanky left-arm pace bowler Shafaq Al Jabir while Bangladesh Biman took in Under-19 captain Ashikur Rahman.

The BCB Development Squad, which will also take part in the league, named a 21-member side yesterday that included Abul Bashar, a player of the Bangladesh team in the recently concluded U/19 World Cup.

The Development Committee had already released 13 cricketers of the U-19 team to play for different corporate houses.

In the three days of registration, 12 office teams contracted over 200 cricketers. The Development Squad was not part of this process.