A 20-member visually impaired Bangladesh cricket team will leave for South Africa this week to participate in the fourth Blind World Cup Cricket to be held in Cape Town from November 26 to December 9. Barring Zimbabwe, nine Test playing countries and Nepal will participate in the tournament, organised by the World Blind Cricket Council. Hafizur Rahman Bullet, the skipper of the Bangladesh blind cricket team, at a press conference on Sunday said they have prepared themselves for two months at a school in Manikganj.
Invented in Melbourne in 1922, blind cricket spread to England, the home of cricket, in the 1940s.
Almost a dozen countries around the world now play the slightly-adapted game, played with a standard bat on a field that is two-thirds the size of a normal wicket.
Bangladesh, who began playing blind cricket in 2008, will make its debut in World Cup with the upcoming edition.
A special white plastic ball has bells inside it to alert the batsmen and fieldsmen of each team, which is made up of four totally blind and seven partially sighted players.
Bowlers shout ‘play!’ just before throwing the ball underarm.
As it flies through the air, bells inside the ball create a ringing sound which the batsmen and fielders track and react to.
‘We are fully prepared for the tournament,’ skipper Hafizur said at the press conference. ‘Like our national cricket team we also want to make our nation proud.’
Bangladesh will open their campaign in the 40-over tournament with a match against Australia on December 3.
Though Bangladesh sent their entry long ago, officials could not provide the detail of Bangladesh’s other fixtures.
-With New Age input
