In a bid to shrug off the picnic league tag, The 21st National Cricket League (NCL), a major first class tournament of the country, is all set to roll onto the ground today (Thursday) with four matches at different venues in the country.
The fans will be enlightened with the big match at the NCL opener as national stalwarts Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah Riyad would clash for their respective teams.
Tamim will be a part of his hometown Chattogram Division, though he is not the captain of the team as Mominul Haque is given the role. But Mahmudullah Riyad will lead the Dhaka Metro.
Eight divisional teams as usually are participating in the tournament split into two tiers. Based on the result of the previous edition, Tier-1 consisted with the teams like Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Dhaka Division. Tier-2 comprised with Chattogram, Dhaka Metro, Sylhet and Barishal.
At the start of NCL today, In Tier-1 game, Rajshahi will take on Dhaka at Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium in Fatullah while Rangpur will battle with Khulna Division at Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna in another tier-1 game.
Barishal will lock horns with Sylhet Division at Shaheed Kamruzzaman Stadium in Rajshahi in tier-2 game, while Chattogram Division will take on Dhaka Metro at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.
Bottom table team of Tier-1 will be relegated to Tier-2 while top placed team of Tier-2 will move to Tier-1.
Unfortunately both Metro and Chattogram is placed in Tier-2 when they have two stars in their respective team. But those two stars were not regular in NCL. While Tamim is playing this tournament after four years, Mahmudullah played just one NCL game, that too in 2017, in last five years. However it is obvious that the duo would try to guide their respective sides into the Tier-1 by helping them begin their campaign on the right note.
And both of them are expected to be hogging the entire spotlight in the opening phase.
Dhaka Metro’s Elias Sunny believe they have the right balance as a team and would make an attempt to get them promoted in the Tier-1.
