THE ICC World T20 match opens today at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium at Mirpur taking the cricket fever of an excited nation to a new height to watch it from the stadium gallery and on TV sets at homes and offices. Bangladesh has valid reasons to be proud of hosting the game and commentators hold the view that it will break new grounds in the country’s sporting history . A total of 16 men’s and 10 women’s teams are taking part in the T20 tournament this time to be played at Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Cox’s Bazar. The event is expected to lift up the country’s image of being a good venue to host multi-national events and if the Tigers can snatch the victory in the opening match, it may take our hopes to new heights from the beginning of the match. The box office has already run out of tickets while young people are making frantic efforts to get it at least to see a single match from the gallery. It is a different mindset away from nasty politics.
However, as most people believe the pre-match concert hosted by Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) at Bangabandhu National Stadium, had in fact turned out to be a gala Indian cultural show where the projection of Bangladesh culture was almost zero and the participation of noted local artists was limited to a few and for only short glimpses. We appreciate the presence of music maestro AR Rahman; people were excited at his presence to see him in person. But we share the critics’ view at the same time that a nearly bankrupt BCB which led the government to raise Tk 100 crore tolls from businesses for funding the game and the concert itself has misused the event by showing Indian culture ignoring the projection of the national culture and heritage on such an important occasion. We must say that we have not pulled out from the socio-political and cultural domination of Pakistan to become subservient to any new master.
As we see, Bangladesh is set to face Afghanistan in the opening match in an uneasy background of losing to the Afghans in the just concluded Asia Cup. But Tigers have already gained momentum winning two practice matches against UAE and Ireland to return to fighting form. We can now hope of a good beginning to see them winning more matches. As per the game plan, six qualifiers-Ireland, Afghanistan, Nepal, Hong Kong, UAE and the Netherlands – will join Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to compete in two preliminary matches from March 16 to 21. The two group winners will then join the top eight Test nations-Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, England, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies-to battle in the ten-team main event. With the high-voltage fight between arch-rivals India and Pakistan the main competition will kick off from March 21 at Sher -e-Bangla National Stadium. The final will be played on April 6 at the same venue again.
We wish the T20 a good start and hope it will bring immense pleasure to our cricket loving people while the global community will keep an equally enthusiastic watch on the matches in the ground.
