You keep us running

My Star Sport
Whenever I talk about sports it reminds me about The Daily Star. I think Star Sport has got all the classic news about sports. Especially the football world is much more revealed. The first think I look after the

headlines is the sports page. "What to watch" is what I like. It guides me through my favourite TV programme. "Did U Know" is another awesome thing about it.

In my unbiased opinion, The Daily Star is really doing good. But there is something I would more appreciate. I think The Daily Star can add the world's best cricket player ranking to make the page more informative. The sudden ups and down in the cricket world will really excite the readers.

An article on the best sport player of the week can also be published.

Even if a biography of a famous sports man is published each week; it will be another classic thing to read. I hope this will grow passion for sports on all readers.

The graphics feels good but the headlines need to be little colourful. I feel Daily Star Sports is really stunning and it's ruling the sports world.

"East and West any where you go! Star Sports is the best."

Kazi Jannatul Islam, Dhaka

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Have a new outlook
First of all, please have a new get-up. For some years you are having the current look. I would suggest you to change the current look to bring interests among the readers.

Star Sport is certainly one of the best among the sports pages of the local dailies. However, since your news presentation and reporting style have not gone through any major change over the years, now it looks pedestrian to your seasoned readers. I would like to make a few humble suggestions that might make Star Sport a bit more exiting.

a) Star Sport could bring out special weekly or monthly edition in addition to the regular pages. In this edition you could provide features on players, events, organisers.

b) One of your weak points is that you do not provide much investigative news on local sports. Same can also be said for feature reports on local sports. Improvement in these two sides is expected from the sports page of the best-selling English newspaper of the country.

c) Why do not you introduce something like player of the week or player of the month? This will encourage our players and also would keep the readers interested in your page.

d) You could select a high prospective game as your "Theme sport" for a year for the development of the game in the country. By giving the selected sport special attention in news as well as by providing reports on problems and prospects of the game, its players and organizers, you could actually help in the development of a game. Sports like Chess, Shooting could be your "Theme Sport".

Mohibul Haque, Dhaka.

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How to make pages
more attractive
First, I congratulate the Star Sport team for taking a splendid step like this. I think only serving news is not enough readers have to have a right to comment on their favorite sections. Like the other sports fan, I love the Star Sport pages very much. When I get up from bed, taking Daily Star, my eyes go to the Star Sport pages, at first. The funniest thing is, Star Sport never disappointed me, without giving me any sports news in time.

For me, The attractive sides of the pages are the colour photos, Talk Turkey, Did U Know, What to Watch etc. These inform us about the past of sports.

However, to make the pages more attractive I suggest serving more up to date news with new photos and publishing the interviews of world best players.

In the end, I want to give thanks to the Star Sport team. As I want to be a journalist, they always encourage me to become a sports reporter. Many good wishes to The Daily Star in their 15th anniversary and the Star Sport team too.

Rubaiya Hasnat Barna
Student of Class XI
RPC, Dhaka

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A few words
Two large pages covering a lot of news items elaborately written on sports of various kinds from home and aboard have been a great source of enjoyment in any sense for the sports loving people. “What to Watch” and 'Day's Event' are two very useful news items. 'Did U Know?' and 'Talk Turkey' have also come up necessarily to meet up the demand of the readers. But it appears to be awfully afflicting when in some cases I find no where in the pages the latest or the final result of a match (especially of a cricket match) though it is not beyond possible to serve the news as far as I can understand, I would now like to offer a suggestion. It is that I think it would probably be a nice move if the Daily Star begins to publish, may be in brief, the biographies of the past and present greats of home and abroad with a view to making the readers known and realize how and from which backgrounds these greats have become greats. I have no doubt that such publication of biographies would make a nice and useful addition to 'Star Sport'.

Md Abdul Barek
Dhanmondi, Dhaka

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Latest cricket
results
Thanks a lot for giving readers a opportunity to express their opinions about sports page. As a regular reader of daily star i think you have takena timely measure to reshuffle the sports page.There is only one daily star supplied in our office. Whenever we read it we take separate pages and then exchange it within ourselves.I find it difficult to read the sports page as the news is segragated into different pages. So, the sports page should be integral rather than segra-gated.

Also the news is not up to date. For instance the fifth Sri Lanka and India match ended on November 6, 2005 but we got the result on November 8th which is too late for a reputed newspaper.

I think it would be better if the page is illuminated with colorful big photograph of star players (especially cricket and tennis) The interview of the world best players and their autobiography can also be published to make the page more attractive.

Suman, Dhaka

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Congratulations
Star Sport
First of all congratulations to 'The Daily Star' on their 15th anniversary and also congratulations to the 'Star Sport' team. Over the years they have done a fantastic job covering sports news and events. You guys certainly deserve acknowledgement for the way you have done your jobs. Starting from your sports news, interviews, personal columns, trivia, coloured pictures and even your paper quality, I guess has been outstanding. So hats off to you.

By the way, I am a student studying in a medical college. I have been a reader of your daily since I was 11 or 12 years old. Almost every day I open the paper and give a quick look on the headlines and then jump into the sports page.

Nowadays with so much sports happening around the world, it's impossible to keep updated. But thanks again to
your work that really keeps us updated all the time. I especially like the coverage you give on the English, Spanish and Italian football leagues. I don't think any other daily gives so much attention to so many sports at a time. Thank you 'Star Sport'.

Now for a suggestion, like the popular Bengali newspapers 'Prothom Alo & Janokantha', I would like you to publish 2 pages weekly only for sports. I would also love to see profiles of sportsmen, which you seldom publish with the 'Rising Star'. I would like this to be on a regular basis.
I would be grateful if you take my suggestions.

Zubair, Dhaka

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Bring back 3-page Sport
I would firstly like to thank The Daily Star for it's uncompromising hard work which makes it the leading English daily in the country. I am an avid reader of your newspaper and I certainly appreciate the hard work that you have put in your work.

In recent months I along with most readers have been very disappointed with the shortening of your Sports pages. We feel that a lot of the latest news connected with football and especially tennis are left out due to the shortage of space. The old format consisting of 3 pages covered all the news accurately, thus keeping us all glued to the pages.

Having the sports section back to its old 3 page format again would be a brilliant Eid present for us regular readers. I sincerely hope that you will look through my suggestions and Happy Eid Mubarak to all!

Taharat, Dhaka

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A reader's question
First I need to know what is your aim or goal to run a sports section in a daily newspaper. If it is for the sheer interest of the reader then I must say you have been fully successful in doing so. Common sports lovers of Bangladesh can read top to bottom of your attractive news generally based on cricket and football. Also you are publishing news of local chess, international tennis.

It means you are very intent on selling the newspaper than working for the greater interest of the country's overall sports. I don't think your sport team consists of real knowledgeable persons with keen interest on overall world sport. You must have just appointed general journalists to work for sports with no real sports background.

To prove this point just look at the FIDE World Chess Championship held on Sept 27-Oct 16 2005 between world's top eight players. Your team has failed to give us any news on this. Your sport team are so keen to publish local chess news but not aware what is going on outside world.

Maybe this kind of news does not sell the paper but you should work to grow our knowledge on sports. We should know what is going on internationally at least at the world level along with local news. Other than cricket, football and chess a real sports lover would like to see our country performing in kabadi, squash, hockey, athletics, badminton, handball, pool/snooker, bridge, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, basketball, rowing, golf, swimming, roller-skating etc.

You should enquire and publish news why these sports are lagging behind in our country. You can give suggestions on how these neglected games can be conducted properly to progress. Why big sponsors are not helping to produce at least one or two world-class performers in any particular game. Why Dhaka sport is only controlled from Motijheel. Why are there are no national level sports activities in the Banani, Gulshan, Mohakhali or Uttara? I am telling this because I have to take my daughter from Banani to Motijheel everyday if I want to engage her in sports.

There are many things on which Star Sport team can work for and write.

So, now you should decide whether you would only work for the newspaper or also for the greater interest of the country's sport?

MS Hamid (Bobby), Old DOHS

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How to make sports
pages attractive
Sports pages play a vital role in making a daily successful. From buisnessmen to school students, everyone is interested to read about different games and players. It's really amazing how people working on these pages present reports in such short time.

To make these sports pages more attractive we can organize them in different sections -- Cricket, Football, Tennis, Basketball, Local Sports and Others. Many youths are now attracted to basketball.

I believe daily news on basketball games, local and international, will be eye-catching to a great number of people who love this game.

Special interviews of local and foreign players maybe published frequently. There can be a place for the weekly opinions of people about sports, that can be mentioned as 'Sports Forum' or 'To The Editor'.

Tahsin Hyder, Class VIII
Maple Leaf International School

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I've been a regular reader of The Daily Star for a long time, basically since my school years. I would like the to take the oppurtunity to say a few words about sports page. I would like to inform that I spend 75 per cent of my time reading the sports pages. It's really a treat to go through the section. I congratulate the people who are working in the sports section. I must say you people are doing a fantastic job.

But in my mind there are still some areas of improvement. They are stated below:

1. At times I don't get updated news. If the game has gone a bit late night (not too late), we usually don't get the news or the scores upto very early in the match.

2. In my opinion though your writing is very fluent and interesting but still I assume you can improve a lot if you see the colums of cricinfo.com. I just love the way they go about things. Their bulletins and comments are extremely entertaining.

3. I have to agree on most occasions you give a full scorecard. Yet there are times when we don't get a scorecard rather get a overall result or score.

This is my feedback regarding the sports page of your popular English daily. Hope you take a few of them into account. Finally, I want to say again that you've done an extraordinary job. My felicitation to you all.

Dr Sayeed Ahmed
Product Executive
Incepta Pharmaceuticals Ltd

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I congratulate you heartily for inviting the comments from your readers to make this page more attractive. This is in fact unprecedented. I have a few suggestions as follows.

A. The Daily Star Sport contains very miserly sports news events of rural areas of Bangladesh especially traditional rural games and sports organised in the schools and colleges at their annual sports programmes. The more it be brought to the news, youth in remote villages will be encouraged and the popularity of reading this top newspaper will be increased tremendously.

B. Star Sport mostly contains the news highlights of cricket and football. Some of the indoor games especially for the women and handicapped may also get headline as and when such events takes place.

C. A letter column in precise especially for the readers every Friday might be there where readers will offer their views on the special games or their experience as sports man including problems of athletes in rural areas of the country.

I hope these suggestions will enrich the Star Sport desk.

Kumar Prithwiraj Nath
Dhanmondi, Dhaka

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About Star Sport
and F1
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the Star Sport on reaching its 15th anniversary. I have a regular reader of the sport page for the last five years. The Star Sport page has been really great in bringing all the latest news and analysis in the sports arena. We can catch up with all the different world sport news by just going through the two sport pages.

I also happen to be a great fan of Formula One. But I unfortunately I find very little information about Formula One. In fact, the only time I see news about it is when someone wins the Formula One Driver's Championship, but that's it. I understand the sport page cannot cover all the news, but the race occurs once a week or two. Surely you can find some space for it once a week. Hopefully, Formula One fans in Bangladesh will find more information about their favourite motor sport in your sport page in the coming days.

Ashfaque, via email

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F1 & A1 Grand Prix news with race results might be a good addition to the pages. I also feel that more coverage on football is needed.

Tahmeed, via email

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Some observations
I have been a regular follower of the sports section of The Daily Star.

All the sports news and sports popular with in the subcontinent are covered quite well. But, mostly the news are not updated, especially for the cricket matches, the news update is done around 8/9…or even before that sometimes there are some tails published giving latest score scenarios, but that's also not always done.

Again, there seems to be done nothing relating with the improvement of Bangladesh sports arena, for example being one of the senior magazine, your paper should publish the life and experience of some of the Bangladesh famous sports personality at least weekly. This gives enough knowledge about the personal experience and the lifestyle of the players, again this can be an instrumental in building a new star.

I even suggest you to introduce some weekly quiz relating publication attending the attention of all readers.

I hardly see much coverage for other sports except cricket and football. It's true these two forms of the games are popular and a matter of talk, but your publications should include brief coverage of sports like hockey, tennis and other domestic games being held. As seen in other international magazine, I recommend to publish the few lines on the stars including their birth date and the focus should be mainly on Bangladeshi sportspersons.

Suman Gautam, BUET, Dhaka

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Improve your
scorecard
Thanks for seeking our feedback. Your sports page is doing a commendable job in presenting sports news before us. I especially like your off the field news like shady deal of BCB, preparation of Bangladesh team etc.

I am little disappointed with your cricket scorecard statistics. Most of the time, it is not mentioned how many balls a batsman faced to score the run. Sometimes I don't have time to read the whole news to know about that. Due to this I have to read another newspaper.

When there is a late night match, the Bangla newspaper can give us more latest news than The Daily Star.

I hope you would look into these issues for our convenience.

Md. Miraj Rahman, Banani, Dhaka

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Cricket matches are reported in the sports news highlighting the day's events. But it is not always possible to find out individual performance from the report. Please print the scorecard like old days from where readers can get the whole picture of the game.

Navir Afzal via email

Better Premiership
coverage, please
I am a regular reader of The Daily Star and I especially enjoy reading sports page. Since I have lived in the UK for 17 years, I follow the Premiership very closely. I usually get the results, match reports, fixtures and table either on TV or Internet. The results you publish are somewhat one day old.

Therefore, they don't have any freshness and excitement. You can argue about the time factor as we are 5 hours in the summer and 6 hours in the winter, ahead of UK.

But in the era of Internet and E-media one can get the latest results of their favourite club or sports. Then they can be inserted in the paper. You can also download so many exciting images of the sport personalities and have them printed in your page.

So please allow us to relish the excitement of reading more informative news and views on the Premiership and UEFA Championship.

For more eye-catching and humorous heading you can look at the some of the leading English newspapers like The Times, The Guardian and Daily Mirror.

I hope this will be helpful. Should you wish I could contribute in your page.

Raju, BIS

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More sports news
out of Dhaka
At first I want to thank The Daily Star for arranging such a remarkable programme to take the opinion of the readers. I am a daily reader of The Daily Star Sport pages. Though this sports news section publishes current news of the international and domestic sports, I think there is still lot more to do. I want to suggest about our domestic level sports. We know success in international sports depends on domestic level sports. Unfortunately our domestic sports are only Dhaka based. So we do not aware of the sports of other districts like Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna and Barishal etc.

I think The Daily Star Sport page can play a major role. If The Daily Star can arrange to publish the sports of this districts, their problems, facilities, then it will be very beneficial for our sports. It can publish how to improve the standard of the sports in such districts. Media is a major factor in today's world. So I request the Star Sport to consider my opinion for the welfare of our domestic sports which ultimately increase our standard in international games and sports.

Shahtab Uddin, Chandgaon R/A, Chittagong

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Good work!
Good coverage of different sector of local and international sports. Keep up the good work.

Mohiul Khan, via email