The Khan Shaheb Osmani stadium in Fatullah impressed the four-member ICC venue inspection team who visited the ground yesterday. ICC might choose the Fatullah stadium ahead of the Sylhet stadium for the World T20 Championship to be hosted by Bangladesh next year, they informed.
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) earlier proposed Fatullah and BKSP as alternative venues for the mega event.
ICC event manager Chris Tetley informed they are happy with the progress they saw at Fatullah. “Bangladesh will host the T20 world championship next year and we are happy with the work progress of the Fatullah stadium,” said Tetley.
He also informed the Fatullah stadium is in much better shape than the Sylhet venue. “The work of the Fatullah stadium is complete and, on the other hand, Sylhet stadium is still under construction. The Fatullah stadium has earlier hosted the Women’s World Cup qualifiers and few one day matches, so we are giving Fatullah more preference than the Sylhet stadium,” informed Tetley.
Meanwhile, the BCB president Nazmul Hasan, who was also present during the visit, informed ICC will declare the results within a week while the BCB chief’s determination to keep the alternate venues inside the country also succeeded. Earlier, the ICC team asked the board to shift the alternative venues to another country.
“We have been asked by the ICC to shift the alternative venues to another country, but I was confident that we can complete the alternative venues on time and today (yesterday) we can say that we are successful as they (ICC) are impressed with the work,” said Nazmul.
However, the Nazmul informed that the renovation work of the Fatullah was supposed to be done by the National Sports Council (NSC), but instead BCB are carrying the work as NSC “did not call the tender of the stadium.”
Meanwhile, the BCB president also said some people are trying to damage the image of the country whenever any ICC team arrives in Bangladesh and at the same time he also warned that he will reveal the people involved with the corruption after the BCB election is completed.