Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium

Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury stadium is situated in Chittagong, Bangladesh. It is the homeground of the Bangladesh national cricket team and the Chittagong Division team.

It has a crowd capacity of 22,000. The two ends at this stadium are Isphani End and UCB End. It has hosted a total of 50 international matches.

History

It was built in 2004 to serve as one of the venues for the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup. It got its international status two years later in 2006.

The first international match at this venue was an ODI between the home team Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The decider match of the three-match bilateral series, Sri Lankans went on to win by 78 runs.

Major matches

It was one of the venues for the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It hosted two group stage matches for Bangladesh. They won both with Imrul Kayes being the Man of the Match in both of them.

The first match will go down as one of the best in Bangladesh’s cricket history as they managed to beat the mighty English side. They were the underdogs in the World Cup and to be able to achieve a victory against one of the top sides was a big thing for them. England was the only team other than South Africa that did not lose to the victorious Indian side.

Recent matches

The last international match played at this venue was a Test match between Australia and Bangladesh. Australia won the match by seven wickets with only 86 runs required in the last innings. Nathan Lyon took 13 wickets in the match becoming only the second bowler after Ian Botham to take 13 wickets in a Test match in Asia.

The match also saw Australia opening an innings with a spinner. Last such instance was way back in 1938.