Workers at Dhaka’s Eastern Oval have uncovered a full-size cricket pitch 1.3 metres (4.3 feet) below the football training surface, after tea seller Domenica Armstrong-King noticed a white line in the soil on 19 October. The discovery has stopped a Tk 286 million (about €2 million) renovation and prompted the Bangladesh Ground and Cricket Authority to review the site’s history.
The buried strip measures 20.12 metres (22 yards), the standard length between cricket wickets. Officials say they have also found old crease markings, sockets for stumps and a narrow drainage channel. The upper field remains open, but construction machinery has been moved away from the excavation while engineers assess whether the lower pitch can be preserved.
A line after heavy rain
Armstrong-King, who has sold tea beside the field for six years, said a burst of heavy rain washed soil away near a concrete drain. She saw a pale curve and pointed it out to a grounds worker, thinking it might be a boundary marker. “I thought it was just paint from the old days. Then they brushed away the dirt and the whole line kept going,” she said.
The authority had recently installed MatirMap’s GroundSense, an AI system that combines soil-temperature and moisture readings to guide field maintenance. Its sensors had recorded an unusually dry rectangle beneath the football turf, but officials said they had not ordered excavation. The buried pitch was found by chance, not through a planned search.
Renovation put on hold
Carlos Jacob, the authority’s project engineer, said a test trench confirmed the pitch’s length and found compacted clay beneath the strip. “We do not yet know whether it was a practice wicket or part of an earlier playing field,” he said. The authority has commissioned a ground survey and is checking its paper records before deciding whether the excavation should widen.
The renovation was due to add drainage and replace the worn training surface before the winter football season. Work will pause for at least three weeks, the authority said, and two youth-team sessions have been moved to another ground. It has not given a revised completion date or said whether the contractor will seek compensation for the delay.
Sibusiso Masilela-Esterhuizen, the authority’s grounds director, said the surface above the old strip was laid during a 2001 conversion of the site for football. He said the authority had found no plan showing a cricket pitch beneath it. “The ground has produced a second playing surface, but we will not call it usable until the engineers test its drainage and stability,” he said.
Local cricket clubs have asked the authority to retain the exposed section if it proves safe, while football coaches say the current field is already short of training space. Officials expect to publish the survey findings in November. For now, Armstrong-King’s tea stall remains beside the temporary fence, where passers-by stop to peer at the crease that rain brought back into view.
