The Sher-e-Bangla
National Cricket Stadium is also called Mirpur Stadium, is a cricket
ground in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Located 10 kilometres away from the
city centre in Mirpur, the ground holds approximately 25,000 people, and is
named for the Bengali statesman A. K. Fazlul Huq, who was accorded the title Sher-e-Bangla ("tiger of
Bengal"). The ground was originally constructed for football in the late
1980s, and first hosted matches at the 1987 Asian Club Championship. The venue
was taken over by the Bangladesh Cricket Board in 2004, replacing the Bangabandhu
National Stadium as the home of both the men's and women's national teams. The
first international match at the redeveloped ground was held in December 2006,
and the stadium has since hosted matches of the 2011 World Cup, 2012
and 2014 Asia Cup, along with majority of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL)
matches. The finals of the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 and Women's World Twenty20
were hosted at the stadium.
The ground is a state
of the art stadium, equipped with world class facilities. It is considered one
of the best grounds in the subcontinent. The most striking feature of the
ground is the modern drainage facility. The ground was originally built for football
and athletics and was hence rectangular in shape. To bring it back to a shape
suited for cricket, a lot of renovation had to be done, and also the athletics
tracks had to be dug up. About three feet of soil was excavated to remove all
the red clay. PVC pipes were fit in before filling it up with rock chips and
sand and then grass. The slope is nice and even, a difference of 29 inches
from the wicket to the boundary. The ground was fitted with floodlights in
2009; it is able to host day/night cricket matches.
The ground hosted
its first Test match on 25 May 2007 where the home team played India. The first
ODI took place in 18 December 2005 where Bangladesh played Scotland.
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