Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina accepts CAB's invitation to attend Kolkata Test

BCCI president-elect Sourav Ganguly confirms Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina will attend the India-Bangladesh Test to be played at Eden Gardens.

Published : Oct 21, 2019 20:30 IST

Eden Gardens will host the second Test between India and Bangladesh from November 22.

Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s confirmation to attend the second India-Bangladesh Test at the Eden Gardens here on November 22 has significantly reduced the uncertainty over the series, arising out of a strike called by the leading cricketers of the neighbouring country.

Even as the news of Bangladesh cricketers’ strike put a question mark over the team’s tour of India next month, BCCI president-designate Sourav Ganguly on Monday gave some hope by informing about Hasina’s confirmation.

“We have invited Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina and she has confirmed to come here. We will do it in a big way. Now that she has confirmed I will look at (West Bengal chief minister) Mamta didi’s confirmation. I will write to the Centre. I have not written (to the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi) as we have not got the prime minister’s permission,” Ganguly told reporters.

Ganguly shared more details about the plans to make the Test a grand affair. “I will request the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president to invite their players of that team, which played the first (ever) Test match (with India in Dhaka in 2000). I will invite the players of our team.”

Ganguly, however, sidestepped the issue of Bangladesh cricketers’ strike, saying “It’s their internal matter.”

The second and final Test of the two-match series will be played here from November 22 to 26.