The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) announced their maiden T20 league called Bengal T20 Challenge. The Bengal T20 Challenge is set to commence on November 24. The 16-day long event will have six sides contesting in the T20 completions.
The six teams in the tournament are Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Kalighat Club, Town Club, Tapan Memorial, and Calcutta Customs Club. These sides would be locking horns against each other for the final four spots for the knockouts. The tournament is supposed to have a total of 33 matches to be played at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata behind closed doors. There will be 30 league games, where every team will once face the other five teams.
Earlier in the week, five players from three teams tested coronavirus positive before getting into the bio-bubble. Some T20 specialists from West Bengal, such as Abhimanyu Easwaran, Writtick Chatterjee, Sunil Kumar Dalal, Saurav Paul, and Abhishek Raman have been ruled out of the tournament, while Rajkumar Pal has himself opted out due to his father’s health.
President of CAB, Avishek Dalmiya said, “We have worked very hard to put the tournament in place. A series of Covid tests were done to prune out anyone positive. Unfortunately, six people, including five of our players, tested positive. The rest are okay and have been put inside the bio-bubble.”
The Cricket Association of Bengal has signed a deal with Fancode to stream all the matches of the Bengal T20 Challenge. FanCode was also the live-streaming partner Caribbean Premier League 2020 (CPL T20). The digital platform will get more prominence since the Bengal T20 Challenge will not be broadcasted on television.