Dhaka – Bangladesh Women’s Volleyball team to play Afghanistan in the official opening match of the First Bangamata Asian Senior Women’s Central Zone International Volleyball Championship’2019 on Saturday (Nov 9) at 4pm at Shaheed Suhrawardi Indoor Stadium in Mirpur.
Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury will inaugurate the six-day meet as chief guest on Saturday afternoon although the Maldives will play Kyrgyzstan in the day’s first match at 10am.
GTV will live telecast the inauguration ceremony.
Five-nation–Afghanistan, Nepal, the Maldives, Kyrgyzstan and hosts Bangladesh will take part initially on league-basis matches and later two top teams will play in the final at 3pm on November 14.
In the remaining league basis matches, hosts Bangladesh will play the Maldives on November 10, Nepal on November 12 and Kyrgyzstan on November 13, all at 3pm at the same venue.
Agriculture Minister Mohammad Abdur Razzaque, MP will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony on November 14.
Mohammed Younus, Chairman of the meet’s Steering Committee and Managing Director of Younus Group, disclosed the details of the tournament at a press conference at the Dutch-Bangla Auditorium of Bangladesh Olympics Association (BOA) on Wednesday.
General Secretary of Bangladesh Volleyball Federation (BVF) Ashiqur Rahman Miku, BVF Joint Secretary Adv Fazle Rabbi Babul, Tournament Director Masoud Yazdan Panah and Secretary General of Asian Central Zone Kylych Sarbaghyshev also addressed the press conference.
Meanwhile, all the four foreign teams—Afghanistan, Nepal, the Maldives and Kyrgyzstan– are already in the capital to participate central zone matches named after Bangamata Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib.
Addressing the media, Miku said, “Bangladesh women’s volleyball team revived in 2017 after a four-year gap and we’ve made a strong women’s wing in the federation aiming to form a national women’s team”.
Kylych, of Asian Central Zone said, “We’ve got five teams out of eight nations of the central Asia for the tournament.”
Technical Director Masoud Yazdani Panah said, “We’ll introduce AVC E-score sheet in the tournament and an AVC E-scoresheet and VIS course started at Mirpur Indoor Stadium from November 6, for 30 potential officials from five countries.”
Earlier, BVF President and DNCC Mayor Mohammad Atiqul Islam presented a replica of the championship trophy and jersey of the Bangladesh Women’s Volleyball team to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday.UNB
