The Dhaka Premiere League Cricket Championship prior to last round of matches have become delicately poised with only three teams Prime Dolesware Sporting Club (PDSC) , Victoria Sporting Club (VSC) and Legends of Rupganj confirming their berth for super six.
There bottom teams Brothers Union, CCS and Kalabagan Cricket Academy (KBCA) are languishing at the rock bottom. Each of the other six teams theoretically stands chance to fill in the three more spots of super six.
Played late into the monsoon weather God remained mostly kind as most of the matches could be completed without weather interfering. Most of the established performers played to their reputations and some talented young players emerged with sparkling performances of bat and ball. Excepting Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman all national players appeared for different teams. Shakib and Mustafiz were playing in IPL. Shakib joined his team AKC but Mustafiz featuring prominently in IPL for the champions Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) has not participated yet for his team MSC.
This year Dhaka Premiere League Cricket remained the only list “A” tournament in 2016 where local players could project themselves. BCB remains reluctant for giving local players enough opportunities for maturing into higher grades. They are more interested in international cricket and BPL type controversial tournaments where money flies.
Anyone who has some inside idea about BCB chemistry is aware of the very biased attitude of BCB officails for one or two teams. Those teams get all undue facilities through utterly biased umpiring. Why should BCB directors and officails be directly involved with the operation of local teams and franchise ? There have been so many credible reports of substandard and deliberately biased umpiring influencing important matches. The next round of matches has pushed some favored teams on the edge with the possibility of not qualifying for the super six. This morning while I was chatting with my very old friend and cricket organizer of Dhaka he was talking if that situation arises the powerful evil syndicate may even go to the extreme of abandoning the league. Hope he was only joking.
Among the top national players Tamim, Mushfique, Mahmudullah, Mominul Haque was true to their form with the bat. ImrulKayes, Shabbir Rahman and Soumya Sarkar appeared to remain in lean patch .Brilliant batting of Anamul, Shamsur and Shahriar Nafees have created huge competition and challenges for the top order and opening partner for Tamim in all formats.
One other batsman Imtiaz has batted brilliantly so far attracting the attention of cricket enthusiast. Younger players like Shatno, Al Amin, Mosaddek and Mehedi Hasan have also shown maturity. The wickets were slow and low giving very little assistance to pacers. Old Fox Mashrafee has exceptionally well with bowl and bat . Mash has played an exceptionally aggressive match winning innings of fastest hundred. He is also among the top three wicket takers. Taskin, Al Amin, Rubel and young Jubair bowled well. Nasir Hussain also kept his reputation as an exceptional all-rounder. Shakib after having a moderate IPL outing is back in his element.
Tamim Iqbal with 376 , Mushfique with 354 , Nasir with 361 , Imrul Kayes with 353 rank , 14 th , 16th ,18th and 19th among the top run getters.
The most worrying was the batting form of Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman and Liton K Das . While several fringe players and youngsters played well these three national players were terribly out of form.
We hope the super six rounds will be played on better surfaces and umpiring will be unbiased and better quality. In future BCB directors must stay away from involvement with particular clubs. The match referees must also play their role strongly. Poor umpiring and biased umpiring must be taken to task. Bangladesh cannot make progress in longer version test cricket unless more longer version List A matches feature regularly in domestic cricket .The wickets must be sporting and umpiring must be unbiased.
Wickets had very little for the bowlers and umpiring at times were diabolical. Still skillful Mashrafee with short run up proved that class is permanent. Jubair bowled well in initial matches .But he played only 7 of the ten match taking 13 wickets. 10 of those wickets came in two matches.
Mashrafee led his team Kalabagan Cricket Club leading from the front. He inspired a very ordinary team on the door step of super six. His exemplary leadership underlined his charismatic brilliance.
We hope the crucial last round matches remain truly competitive and deserving teams qualify for super six.It will not be surprising if either of both of the two popular teams MSC and AKC fail to make the grade
BDST: 1337 HRS, June 5, 2016
AKA
