The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on Monday (Dec 9) announced the fixture and unveiled the trophy of the National Cricket League (NCL) T20 tournament, starting on Tuesday (Dec 10).
All the matches of the tournament will be held in the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium (SICS). Outer Stadium and the main ground of the SICS will be used to hold all of the matches.
Four matches will be held every day in two venues with the SICS holding the first match at 9.30 a.m. and second match at 1.30 p.m. First match in Outer Stadium of SICS will start at 9 a.m. and the second one from 1 p.m.
On the first day, Sylhet will take on Dhaka and Rangpur will play against Chattogram at SICS while Dhaka Metro will face off Barishal and Khulna will lock horns with Rajshahi at the Outer Stadium.
The demand for organizing a T20 tournament sans Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has been long cherished. The BCB responded to it by vowing that the NCL T20 tournament will be held every year ahead of the BPL. The NCL T20 will be modeled after the National Cricket League (NCL), which is a first class tournament.
In the NCL, the remaining seven divisions, except Mymensingh, will participate, in the T20 version along with Dhaka Metro. Each team will face each other in the league phase. The top four teams then will move to playoffs where like BPL, the top two teams will face each other for a direct berth in the final while the bottom two teams will play to keep their final hopes alive. The loser of the bottom two teams will be eliminated from the race, and the winner will take on the team that lost the match between the top two.
The final will be held on Dec 24 at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.
