Three grounds where Bangladesh will play group-stage matches in this T20 WC

The wait for the ICC Men’s World T20 is finally coming to an end. Within a few days, 20 teams from different parts of the world will fight for the Cristal-shaped silver trophy. The USA is hosting an ICC event alongside 3 Caribbean countries for the first time. As a result, cricket fraternities in those countries are interested to know about the venues as well. As a part of group D, Bangladesh will play at two venues in the US and another venue in the Caribbean country St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Throughout this article, let’s review these three stadiums and Bangladesh’s track record in those venues. 

The Grand Prairie Stadium

Texans love American-style football and baseball. The Grand Prairie Stadium is situated in the city of Grand Prairie and the city authority owns this place. In 2008, this ground was inaugurated as a ballpark (baseball ground) and served as the home ground for Texas AirHogs since 2019. Alongside serving as a baseball ground, this site hosted some football (what they call soccer) matches for Texas United from 2017-19.  After that, the Major League Cricket (MLC) and the American Cricket Enterprise signed a long-term agreement to use this ground for Cricket and currently, Texas Super Kings, a team owned by the owners of the IPL team Chennai Super Kings, is using it as their home ground in MLC. Bangladesh will start their World Cup journey with a high-voltage match against Sri Lanka at this ground on 8 June at 6:30 AM according to the Bangladeshi standard time.

During the period of 2021-22 this ground was redeveloped to host cricket matches and last year this ground hosted the first ever match of the MLC. By the time of writing this article, no international-level match was played here although it will host the first match of the T20 World Cup 2024 between the US and Canada. However, this ground witnessed a total of 12 MLC T20 matches so far during the event of the previous edition of the MLC and host many more this year after the event of the World Cup. Aside from that, 8 more T20 matches were recorded at this ground during the last edition of the Minor League Cricket. 

This ground is currently using a turf pitch and it is anticipated like the pitches of West Indies, 3 grounds from the US may also feature a little bit slowish nature. The average score in the last 10 T20 matches at Grand Prairie is 159 for the first innings and 137 for the second innings. 6 times the spectators saw 170+ scores on this ground while the highest score in Major League Cricket was 215/5 by San Francisco Unicorns.  Among the 11 matches during the last season of MLC, 8 times the team batted first got the victory in the end. 

Nassau  County International Cricket Stadium

This stadium was inaugurated on 16 May – just 16 days before the commencement of the magazine event of the game. This stadium is situated in Nassau County in the state of New York. Apart from being close to the city of ‘liberty’, this stadium is a unique ‘modular’ stadium, the first of its kind in cricket. According to the media, the US authority spent around 30 million dollars behind this semi-permanent establishment that will host the Bangladesh-South Africa match on 10 June and the high-voltage Pakistan-India game on 9 June. 

This ground hasn’t hosted any major matches yet. India and Pakistan will be the first two international sides to play on this ground during a warm-up match on 1 June. This ground doesn’t have any pitch of its own. For the event of the T20 World Cup 4 drop-in pitches have been brought from Adelaide, Australia and were curated in Florida before they were transported by road. Besides, it will feature 34,000 premium seats – sourced from an F1 racing track’s gallery. This ground is supposed to be the biggest stadium in the US. Additional 6 pitches are also available here to serve the practice sessions.

Although this ground will host 6 matches in this World Cup, there’s no data available about the pitches and average score since this ground is not a permanent one. However, Australia and New Zealand have used such drop-in pitches before since some of their grounds are used for hosting different sporting events. It is assumed that this ground could be bouncy but it will be batting-friendly at the same time. ICC appointed Damain Hough, the curator of the Adelaide Oval to prepare these pitches for this event. 

Arnos Vale Stadium

Bangladesh will play their last 2 group-stage matches in this venue. On 13 June, the Tigers will face the Netherlands at 8:30 PM while the existing match will be played against Nepal at 5:30 AM. However, like the aforementioned US venues, Arnos Vale Ground of St Vincent has been lacking from international events for a long time.

Opening in 1997, this ground saw only 5 T20 matches so far. Even the track records aren’t that much enticing in terms of batting. With the highest ever T20I score recorded 158/8 by Pakistan against West Indies, the average score is only 118 by the team that batted first and 117 for those who chased the target. The last time this ground hosted a T20I game was in 2013 for both men’s and women’s teams. On both of the occasions, the hosts took on Pakistan. The Tigers lost a test by 10 wickets in 2014 against Windies which was the last international game at this stadium. 

Group D (Bangladesh’s POV)

Bangladesh squad: Najmul Hossain Shanto (c), Taskin Ahmed, Litton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Shakib Al Hasan, Tawhid Hridoy, Mahmud Ullah Riyad, Jaker Ali Anik, Tanvir Islam, Shak Mahedi Hasan, Rishad Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam, Tanzim Hasan Sakib.

Travelling reserves: Afif Hossain, Hasan Mahmud.