It was past midnight Sunday, if you were in Jackson Heights in New York there were interesting scenes you would have witnessed.
A group of middle aged men were sipping on a cup of tea and busy sorting cartons full of Bangladesh national cricket team fan jerseys.
They were in charge of delivering the shirts to those who are registered in the list.
A few steps from this group – was another and they had the agenda of sorting the tickets and confirming the attendance.
This group of young men were also setting the time and route for a couple of buses they rented.
They were going to the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium to support Bangladesh playing against South Africa in a Group D fixture in the ongoing Twenty20 World Cup.
Such has been the excitement in the Bangladeshi community living in and around New York city.
“Bangladesh do not get to play everyday in America. It is a rare moment for us to go and support our team. We do not want to miss the opportunity. The community has been very excited since it was announced Bangladesh will play a few games in America in the T20 World Cup and now the time has come,” said Adbul Aziz who has been living in USA for 26 years.
“We are a group of about 35 of all ages and genders. We want to put up our best support for Bangladesh team,” said the Jackson Heights resident.
The Nassau County stadium can hold 34,000 people and when the Tigers locked horns with the Proteas, more than 60% of the arena was occupied by the Bangladesh supporters in red and green colors.
Bangladesh cricket team rank number nine in Tests, eight in One Day Internationals and nine in T20 Internationals.
There has been no significant achievement by the senior team in multi-nation events.
The side are far behind any semblance of consistency in the shortest format especially but the support towards them has been unconditional, extreme and blind.
Such is the passion among the supporters that some do not hesitate to travel thousands of kilometers and even continents.
Such examples are however, mostly found during the World Cups – both ODIs and T20Is.
One such type is Arijit Barua Shawon.
Born in Chittagong, Arijit is now a resident in Sydney, Australia and did not hesitate to take break from work and family and travel about 14,000kms to USA to support the Tigers.
Before this he had travelled to England during the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
“I have been a cricket fan since childhood, played a bit of it during my school and college days. I bought tickets [in T20 World Cup] even after Bangladesh lost series to USA. It is always country first for me irrespective of the performance. I have travelled to USA to support my team in the World Cup. I have travelled to England and to all venues when they played T20 World Cup in Australia two years ago. Now I am in USA,” said Arijit to Dhaka Tribune.