Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) got the nod from the International Cricket Council (ICC) to organize a T20I match between Asia All Star and Rest of the World to celebrate the 100th birthday of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The match will be held in between Mar 18-21 next year at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.
The BCB president Nazmul Hassan Papon informed the outcome after attending an ICC meeting in England. Papon said the ICC gave the nod happily to go ahead with the idea.
“One thing was approved in the ICC meeting, which is a very good news for the country, is that there was a decision regarding the arrangement of a T20 match to celebrate the 100th birthday of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for which we applied to ICC,” Papon told the reporters in Dhaka on Wednesday (Jul 24), reports BSS.
He also mentioned that ICC has made an exception as they also gave this match an international status.
“However, the problem we faced initially was that ICC only allows a member country to arrange such a match. Like the last time ICC allowed a match between Pakistan versus the rest of the World. They could allow it because Pakistan is a member country and that’s why the match was also given international status.
“But we proposed for a match between two regions — Asia All Star and Rest of the World. So if there are no member countries playing then how will they give it an international status?
“However one good thing that happened is that all the other boards have supported this proposal and it has been decided that the match will get international status.
“ICC also mentioned, which is more important in my opinion, is that this decision cannot be used as a reference in future by any other countries. This is a special dispensation for Bangladesh. So I think this is a great thing for Bangladesh” he added.
He said that the current players will be the part of the match and they expected to get all of the Asian players except two countries.
“We will not include the past players in the two teams. We will try to get all the current players. As per my observation, apart from two teams, every team will be available during that period when we’ll arrange the match,” he informed.
“The slot for the match has been fixed. The match will be held in-between 18th to 21st March of next year.”
To celebrate the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman next year, country’s sports fraternity will have year-long domestic and international events.
“If we had arranged a match of Bangladesh with any other team then only people of two countries would have watched, one is Bangladesh and the other whom we would have been playing. Now since we are planning to arrange a match between Asia XI and World XI to celebrate the Bangabandhu”s 100th birthday and this match will be seen by the whole world see,” Papon said.