Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rung the customary Eden bell in the presence of BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, Bangladesh Cricket Board chief Nazmul Hasan Papon and batting legend Sachin Tendulkar among other dignitaries.
Hasina and Mamata met the teams before the national anthem was played by the Army Band in front of a packed house. Union Home Minister Amith Shah, who was supposed to be in attendance, however could not make it.
The historic match was supposed to kickstart with Army paratroopers flying into Eden to hand over a pink ball each to the two captains just before the toss. But due to security reasons, that had to be cancelled at the last moment by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB).
The other former cricketers present were S Ramesh, Saba Karim, Sunil Joshi, Ajit Agarkar, Venkatesh Prasad, Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohammed Azharuddin, Kris Srikkanth, Farokh Engineer and Chandu Borde.
Athletes from other sports like Abhinav Bindra, P. Gopichand, PV Sindhu, Sania Mirza and Mary Kom were also there.
Naimur Rahman, Mohammed Mahmudul Hasan, Maharab Hossain, Mohammed Hasibul Hussain, Shahriar Hossain Biddut, Kazi Habibul Bashar and Mohammed Akram Khan were the former Bangaldesh cricketers who were present.