Ushering in a new era

I have fond memories of Dhaka’s venerable Bangabandhu Stadium, the venue for England’s inaugural Test against Bangladesh back in October 2003. Like the Recreation Ground in Antigua, its ramshackle nature was an integral part of its character, and the fact that both venues were situated right in the heart of their capitals was an added advantage when it came to ushering casual spectators through the gates.

In its 50-year history, the Bangabandhu hosted 17 Tests and 58 ODIs, but in 2005, it was decommissioned and handed back to the national Football Federation, to resume hosting the sport which had long been held at the ground during the monsoon season. Instead an alternative stadium was earmarked in Mirpur, a somewhat less frantic suburb 5km to the north. During England’s last visit it was still in the throes of reconstruction, but now it is ready, and it has to be said, it does look rather impressive.

In keeping with the Bangladeshi experience, the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium has its unconventional aspects. The exterior, for instance, is entirely dominated by furniture stores, which have burrowed deep into the triangular cavities beneath the stands, and where you can purchase a lavishly carved dining-room table for a pre-haggle price of 10,000 taka (roughly £100), with a cup of tea thrown into the bargain.

On match days, the shops are forced to close, and for the 2011 World Cup they may well have to be cleared out entirely to meet with the ICC’s stringent requirements. But for the manager of Rifat Furniture, Mr Jalil (whose determination to refit my London bedroom was admirable but futile) the future will be what it will be. Having managed his particular store for the past ten years, he seemed content to count the blessings he’d already accumulated.

But the future, as far as Bangladesh cricket is concerned, is unquestionably centred on Mirpur. As one of the England support staff suggested, it’s Dhaka’s answer to the Gabba, for it is an amphitheatre of a venue which is unquestionably a “stadium”, as opposed to a “ground” – a subtle distinction that could make it feel rather cold and chasm-like during next month’s Test, if the crowds fail to pack its 30,000 capacity. But for a day-night ODI, it promises to serve up quite a spectacle, even if the rickety old floodlights are still the same ones that used to light up football matches in its previous incarnation.

The stadium is also the new home of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, and it’s fair to say that that fact has helped to limit the cost-cutting on the refit. The board was previously housed on the upper floors of a chaotic bazaar in Gulshan, and so the chance to have a proper reception, with portraits of Bangladesh’s captains lining the walls of the corridors, and spacious offices looking over the field from midwicket, was important in terms of raising the governing body’s prestige. How much this all impacts on other areas of Bangladesh cricket is a moot point. As one official admitted, he’d never been to Fatullah, that unloved adjunct at which England went through their warm-ups, and he never intended to either.

But if that means the BCB’s eggs are all in one basket, then at least the upshot is a focal point of the sort that was distinctly lacking at the time of England’s last tour. Take the mundane issue of a proper nets facility, for instance. Mirpur’s cordoned-off practice area, just across the road from the main stadium, has eight lanes of grass nets and a sizeable indoor school.

It’s no better or worse than the sort of complex that you might find at Leicester or Northampton. But compared to the extraordinary thatched hut at the Bangladesh Institute of Sport in the far-distant district of Savar, which until 2005 was the only all-weather practice facility in the entire country, it is a massive improvement. Six years ago in monsoonal conditions, Michael Vaughan’s squad spent up to an hour-and-a-half a day traipsing backwards and forwards to that lonely indoor school, as the surface at the Bangabandhu was waterlogged beyond salvation.

And there again is another reason why Mirpur is an improvement. Bangladesh’s temperamental weather is hardly a national secret, but thanks to the extensive excavations that were necessary to convert the ground from its rectangular football past to its oval cricketing present, the drainage at the new stadium is about as good as you will find in the subcontinent.

The media facilities, for what it’s worth, are also pretty impressive, with a high vantage point and a Lord’s style glass frontage, quite unlike the 1950s schoolroom atmosphere of the old Bangabandhu with its graffitied wooden desks and air of irreversible decay. It is what you might term a start. What it needs now is a team to apply a finish.