The quiet rise of Bangladesh’s new List-A venues

On the morning of 4 May, 2026, something passed largely without ceremony at three different grounds around Dhaka that probably deserved a great deal more of it.

The Bashundhara Sports City Cricket Ground, the Cricketers Academy Ground, and Pubergaon Krira Shikkha Protishthan (PKSP) -- each hosted their first-ever Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League match.

For many, they were simply venues. For anyone who had played on those surfaces before — in a bankers' tournament on a Friday morning, in an amateur league final, in a casual 20-over game with office colleagues — they were proof of a journey that nobody in official cricket had planned, funded, or even noticed for a very long time.

The story of Bangladesh's amateur and corporate cricket boom is a story about what happens when people love a game enough to organise it themselves.

The culture has roots around 2008–09, but it was after 2014–15 that it truly took shape. Tournaments multiplied across Dhaka — weekend competitions for office workers, bankers' cups and inter-corporate leagues. Names like the Amateur Champions Trophy, TK and LMS became part of a sprawling, informal ecosystem that operated entirely outside the Bangladesh Cricket Board's (BCB) orbit.

Fuad Bin Sajjad, a veteran of many of these circuits, puts it simply. "I remember we started playing amateur cricket back in 2008–09 with Ishtiaque (Sadeque) bhai and others. It became serious around 2014. These grounds we are seeing now — they weren't ideal to host proper cricket. I remember in PKSP, we used to play with two tents outside the ground. Now it's a full-facilitated ground. Because we rent it with proper money and we demand those facilities. Since we play mostly T20, wickets needed to get better. So over the years, wickets got better — good bounce, good carry. All of these came in phases," he said.

For much of this period, the country's cricket board was not paying attention. Mohammad Isam, a cricket journalist and active amateur cricketer, tells a story that captures the gap perfectly. When the amateur boom took hold after 2015, BCB was entirely absent. As recently as 2023, a BCB board director asked Isam whether this kind of cricket was even happening.

"I told him yes, this is actually very thriving now," Isam says.

The irony is sharp. While the board was elsewhere, a parallel cricketing infrastructure was being quietly built by organisers and entrepreneurs who simply wanted places to play.

"Out of the six grounds given for Premier League matches, four are regularly used for corporate cricket — PKSP, Cricketers Academy, ULAB, and Bashundhara Sports City," Isam says. "All four were basically started for corporate cricket. The Cricketers Academy wicket, in no way is it inferior to what we experienced at Mirpur Stadium in the early 2010s. And the straw-coloured batting wicket we had at Abahani ground — we found that same quality at Pubergaon. These are fully-fledged cricket grounds. Maybe without floodlights. But otherwise — these are proper."

Reazur Rahman Rohan, a sports organiser at Leo Entertainment Sports Management who runs the Bankers Platinum Cup, agrees the grounds earned their status honestly.

"These venues grew over time. Amateur cricket still happens at these grounds — I won't say it doesn't. Each ground grew at its own pace. Bashundhara, maybe the last three, four, five years. The others grew more after COVID," he said.

Bashundhara Sports City Cricket Ground needs little introduction by now. Fuad's observation on its drainage says it best, "If you look at the drainage system in Bashundhara, it has to be second best after Mirpur." Rohan adds, "The atmosphere goes with a league like this."

Today's three debutants are not even the full picture. Rohan points to Silicon City Cricket Ground with genuine surprise at its absence.

"Honestly it's equivalent to a venue where you could play a first-class match. It's such a beautiful venue," he said.

Isam extends the map further — Hamidur Rahman Stadium, Masco Cricket Academy, Delta Cricket Academy. All of them proper grounds with good wickets, pavilions and facilities, built not by the state but by the appetite of the weekend cricketer.

Fuad started playing amateur cricket around 2008. He has watched these grounds change season by season.

His verdict is brief. "It's a big step forward," he said.

He is right. But the step forward belongs to the people who were already walking — long before anyone official was watching.