Cricketers back in the fray as NCL kicks off

The country's cricketers will get down to the serious business of excelling in their jobs in the endeavour to catch the eyes of the national selectors when domestic cricket rolls onto the field with the start of the four-day National Cricket League (NCL) today across the country.

The players have claimed that the competitiveness has increased in the last few seasons but there still needs to be more of that increase. Like previous seasons, everyone will look forward to seeing how the pitches behave in the 19th edition of the competition, especially with the continued refrain about sporting wickets.

In the first round, the focus will also be on Mashrafe Bin Mortaza who is set to play for hosts Khulna against Rangpur in order to gain some match practice ahead of the ODI series in South Africa.

In the other tier-1 match, Dhaka face off with Barisal in Cox's Bazar while in the second-tier opening matches, Dhaka Metro take on hosts Chittagong and Rajshahi hosts Sylhet.

Each team will face each other twice and the champion team of Tier 2 will be promoted to Tier 1 and the fourth-placed team in Tier 1 will be relegated to Tier 2 for the next season.