Wills International Cup countdown (9 October 1998)

Asif Iqbal, event manager of the Wills International Cup, arrived Dhaka Thursday

09-Oct-1998

9 October 1998

Wills International Cup countdown

By Zahid Newaz in Dhaka

The latest news in the buildup to the Wills International Cup, with 15 days remaining till the start:

Asif Iqbal, event manager of the Wills International Cup, arrived Dhaka Thursday. He will be staying in the capital till completion of the tournament.

The players and officials of nine participating teams as well as the invited guests will stay in Sonargaon Pan Pacific Hotel. A total of 192 rooms of the five-star hotel have been booked for them.

As the monsoon for mosquito menace is nearing, Dhaka City Corporation has launched a special drive to keep the players and guests free from a single bite. The drive will continue in and around the venue Bangabandhu National Stadium and Sonargaon Hotel until the tourney is over.

England will play a practice match against Bangladesh at BKSP ground on October 23. At the same venue England on October 21 will take on Zimbabwe in another practice match. Bangladesh may also get an opportunity to play another match against Zimbabwe or New Zealand.

Bangladesh Hockey Federation has postponed the league matches from October 28 to November 1. The decision was taken after consideration that hockey league will not get crowd and media coverage during the biggest the cricketing show in the country.

Apart from police and army, a private security farm personnel will also be deployed around the Bangabandhu Stadium during the tourney. Some securitymen of "Group Four Securities" have already been deployed at BCB office.

Ticket Committee Convenor has informed that there will be seat numbers in all the galleries. Earlier, a decision to maintain the system of seat numbering was cancelled. It has been restored to avert any untoward incident. The BCB will sell about 35,000 different types of tickets for each match.

Tickets will be sold from 13 city branches of the IFIC Bank. However, organisers have a plan to open one or two bank booths at the stadium premises for selling the tickets.

All the tickets of 16 air conditioned hospitality box and 24 non air conditioned hospitality box were already sold. Tournament organiser, the ICC has booked 12 non-AC hospitality box on payment basis. Each of the AC box will cost 5,000 US dollars while non-AC one 4,000 dollars.

Former and current national cricketers will be liasion personnel for the participating teams of the tourney. The names will be finalised after Bangladesh team, now participating ACC Trophy in Nepal, return home.

Source :: CricInfo365