New ground in Sylhet to open with NCL

A newly built ground at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium is set to be used for the upcoming edition of the National Cricket League 2020-21, slated to start from October 17.

The stadium already has one ground that hosted a Test match against Zimbabwe and a bunch of international matches since the 2014 ICC T20 World Cup.

Another ground has been prepared in the adjacent area, with all the facilities of an international standard dressing room, gymnasium, media enclosures and green gallery.

The new ground is termed as the ground-2, where Bangladesh women’s national team had played intra-squad practice matches but officially, the first competitive match will be played from the upcoming edition of NCL.

All the matches of tier-1 will take place in Sylhet. The four teams of Tier-1 are- Sylhet, Khulna, Rangpur and Dhaka.

“All the cricketers will be staying at Rose View hotel in Sylhet, in a bio-secure environment. After three days of in-room quarantine, they will be able to join the play upon being covid-19 negative,” Secretary of Sylhet Divisional cricket committee, Forhad Qureshi told The Business Post.

With the new ground being operational, two matches will go on simultaneously at the Sylhet venue.

For tier-2, which includes Chattogram, Rajshahi, Barisal and Dhaka Metro team, the first two rounds of matches will take place at Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar.

From round three, the matches will take place at both the grounds of Sheikh Kamal International Stadium in Cox’s Bazar.