Tale of an International venue that turns out to be vegetable garden

|| CF Correspondent ||

Shaheed Chandu Stadium—an International venue is now the perfect of example of that old adage—“out of the sight, out of the mind.” If there was no name plate on the stadium gate, nobody can recognize that it’s a stadium, let alone the fact that it’s an International stadium.

It’s difficult to remember when cricket is last played here. You have to trip down to the memory lane to find out when it hosted any match. It’s now just remains in people’s gossip or memory.

Now this international cricket stadium is a place to cultivate vegetable for which it remains under water always. So when you look at it, you might ponder it as a paddy field, not a stadium.

But the stadium could make the cricket lovers nostalgic, as it’s the venue where Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka for the first time. But after some matches, cricket is withdrawn from here for some no reasons. It’s been 13 years since it hosted any match.

Shaheed Chandu Stadium now looks a lush green place, but the greenery is for vegetable cultivation. Whereas huge amount of money is invested to build this International stadium. And Bangladesh’s record was awesome here, winning four out of five matches they played here.

For some invisible reason international cricket was stopped from 2006 .Now only domestic matches is played here but there is no one to take care. From dressing room to galley, VIP box to normal gallery everything is like abandoned factory. The gallery chair is broken while no glass is visable.

The most important problem is security. As there is nobody to look after the stadium lot of building is  made surrounding the stadium. Now every body use this stadium as a transit point for crossing road .

Lot of shops and buildings make stadium entry narrower. There is nobody to answer why the stadium position is like these .Though domestic cricket matches  are held , it seems Bangladesh cricket Board (BCB) has little interest to improve the structure.

That is the reason that the stadium’s situation is getting bad to worse.

However the stadium was made hastily in BCB’s bid to increase the number of International stadiums in Bangladesh. The stadium was inaugurated with Test match and later some ODIs were held, with the last match on December 5, 2006. The stadium was a long time demand for Bogra people also.

However with the stadium’s condition deteriorating in every passing day, the senior citizens of the city, who care for cricket, is trying to bring back the aura through some development. There is airport here, which is a barrier to give back its International status again.

Still, General Secretary of Bogra Masudur Rahman Milon has requested  to BCB to bring back cricket here in Bogra.

He said International cricket should be brought back here in a bid to repair the damage.

He also said if this is not possible, the stadium of Bogra Zilla School Stadium can be used for matches.

However it is not the case that the airport is a barrier, it is the ground quality which got D grade certificate from ICC, which keeps BCB reluctant about the stadium.