The Ascent Corporate Five-A-Side Soccer Cup, one of the country’s most prestigious corporate football tournaments, has been a fine platform for the former and current professional cricketers to engage with an organisation for sporting reasons and get employed for their skills at the same time.
The 10th edition of the tournament is sponsored by Ascent Group and organised by Excalibur Entertainment. The tournament kicked off on August 14 and will conclude today with the semi-final and final matches of the Cup, Plate and Bowl phase. A total of 45 corporate team were divided into 14 groups with defending champions Gemcon Group looking strong favourites for the Cup title.
National left-arm spinner Arafat Sunny, former first-class cricketer-turned-umpire Masudur Rahman Mukul, former national fast bowler Morshed Ali Khan Sumon and former national all-rounder Neeyamur Rashid Rahul were some of the star cricketers who featured in the indoor event.
And according to Rahul, who is now the First Assistant Vice President of Mutual Trust Bank, these kind of indoor tournaments help the former and current national cricketers to connect with different corporate houses and create a cordial relationship between the two parties.
“I think it’s a great platform for the corporate houses to get involved with sports and more importantly, it helps us to connect with each other from different sectors. At the same time, there are some former and current national cricketers who get appointed for a job and play for his company in this type of tournaments. I think the Ascent Indoor Corporate tournament has been a great platform,” Rahul told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“Our managing director and CEO of Mutual Trust Bank, Anis A Khan, has been the main man behind our participation in these type of sporting events and we all play together as a team. There are no senior or juniors when we play in the field,” added Rahul.