Bangabandhu school cricket from Jan 20

The Bangabandhu National School Cricket tournament will start from January 20 across 64 districts of the country. The major grassroots tournament, sponsored by the Prime Bank in association with the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) for the past four years, has this time been named after father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to mark his birth centenary celebrations.

“A number of events are taking place around the country to celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. This time, the tournament is named after Bangabandhu. Every year a record number of young cricketers take part in this tournament. I hope that the tournament will be of great excitement and memorable for everyone involved,” said Prime Bank CEO Rahel Ahmed at the logo unveiling ceremony at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.

The tournament will see a total of 11,120 students from 556 schools participate all over the country, the number of teams and players from last year.

BCB director and game development committee chairman Khaled Mahmud explained how this age-level tournament helps youngsters, mentioning the return of lost enthusiasm and excitement surrounding the tournament.

“The school cricket tournament has slowly started to regain its legacy. In the ongoing ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup, there are four players in the Bangladesh squad who have previously played in the Prime Bank National School tournament. In almost every age-level team, there are a number of players who played in school tournament,” said Mahmud.

The tournament will be held in three phases -- district round, divisional round and national round. A total of 960 matches will be played in 70 different venues. The national round will be held between the champions of district, seven divisional champions and the best team from Dhaka Metro.