Two lowly teams of the nine elite - New Zealand and Zimbabwe - will play the inaugural match, the only pre-quarter final of the nine-day tourney, starting at 2 pm.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the one-off knock out championship at 1.50 pm by releasing 11 pigeons and 11 balloons at the 40,000 crowd capacity stadium. Soon after the inauguration, she will be introduced to the two participating teams of the opening match.
All the eight day-night matches will start at 2 pm and conclude at 9.45 pm with a break of 45 minutes from 5.30 pm.
Nine test playing countries - Sri Lanka, Australia, India, Pakistan, England, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand and Zimbabwe - will compete in the fund raising tournament of ICC to be concluded on November 1. Of them, five teams - world champions Sri Lanka, South Africa, England, Zimbabwe and New Zealand -- are already in the capital to participate in the gala event.
Two former world champions, India and West Indies teams, will arrive in Dhaka on October 25 along with a six-member partial squad of Australia. Another former world champions, Pakistan, will be the last team to reach Dhaka on October 27 with the remaining Australian players.
The Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (DESA) has taken special measures to continue the electricity supply uninterrupted during the matches in the city. Tight security measures have already been enforced in the capital specially in around the stadium and hotels. Some 3,000 members of Army, Armed Police Battalion, Special Branch, NSI and private security force Group-4, will be guarding the capital until the cricket carnival ends.
Nearly 37,000 tickets including 30,000 for the gallery will be released in each match. Most of the tickets have already been sold from bank counters. Bangabandu National Stadium in Dhaka is now wearing a new look with beautiful decoration and its adjoining areas are in festive mood.
The ``trophy'' of the Wills International Cup Cricket, which reached the capital on Wednesday from India, was officially unveiled and handed over to Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) President Saber Hossain Chowdhury by ICC President Jagmohan Dalmiya at a simple ceremony on Friday.
Meanwhile, four match referees and five international cricket umpires are already in the capital to conduct the Wills International Cup Cricket.
The four match referees for the tournament are Raman Subba Row (England), Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka) and Ibrahim Isaac (South Africa) and Gundappa Vishanath of India.
Five umpires are : David Shepherd, Peter Willey (England), Srinivas Venkataraghavan (India) and Steve Bucknor (West Indies) and Steve Dunne (New Zealand). Another South African umpire, Dave Orchard, now conducting the third Pakistan-Australia test match, will reach Dhaka on October 27 along with Pakistan team.
Bucknor and Willey will conduct today's match between New Zealand and Zimbabwe. Subba Row will be the match referee while Shepherd will be the TV umpire in the match.