Holders Bangladesh will begin their campaign of retaining the title when they take on Papua New Guinea (PNG) in their opening first round 'Group A' match of the Pepsi Second ACC trophy at the Tribhuvan University ground in Kathmandu, Nepal, this morning.
Ten teams, split into two groups for the first round, are taking part in the 10-day meet, which is also the qualifying tournament for the Asia Cup. The winners at Nepal will join World champions Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan in the 1999 Asia Cup to be held in Dhaka next march.
Bangladesh will meet Malaysia on October 5. The other two group matches against Singapore and Maldives will be held on October 7 and 8.
Bangladesh has met PNG before. Bangladesh was beaten by PNG by three wickets in their first meeting, which was a play-off match for the third place in the second ICC Trophy way back in 1982. Bangladesh took a sweet revenge of that defeat after 14 years when they handed PNG a huge seven-wicket defeat in the first ACC trophy semi-final in Malaysia two years back. Bangladesh eventually emerged unbeaten champions defeating United Arab Emirates by 108 runs in the final.
Meanwhile, four members of the 18-member Bangladesh who could not avail the flight on September 30 because of the paucity of seats, joined the main body in Kathmandu yesterday. They are - manager Enayet Hossain Siraj, Assistant coach Sarwar Imran and two cricketers - Sajjad Ahmed and Mushfiqur Rahman.