BPL 10 off to a promising start

The 10th edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) jolted to a start yesterday after a muted build-up, pulling in a decent crowd for a double-header at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur on the weekend.

The final few days before the tournament were marred by talks of off-field issues such as the implementation of a revenue-sharing model with the franchises and the tentativeness of the teams about declaring their captains.

But after Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president and Youth and Sports minister Nazmul Hassan Papon declared the tournament open in a watered-down ceremony, cricket took centre stage.

Durdanto Dhaka skipper Mosaddek Hossain elected to bowl against defending champions Comilla Victorians after winning the toss which was not that surprising considering the pattern in the previous edition of the tournament where teams that won the toss opted to bowl first in nine out of the 12 day games in Dhaka.

The success rate in this strategy, however, was far from a 100 percent one with the toss winners going on to win five out of the nine games last year.

Dhaka pacer Taskin Ahmed tested the Comilla openers -- newly appointed captain Liton Das and the person he took over from, Imrul Kayes, early on.

The slowness of the surface also came into the equation as Comilla produced 44 in the Powerplay for the loss of one wicket.

Imrul and Towhid Hridoy then got things going for Comilla with a 107-run partnership but the duo failed to accelerate in the final overs.

Taskin picked up both batters in the 19th over and then Shoriful Islam claimed a hattrick in the last three deliveries of the innings to restrict Comilla to 143 for six.

Dhaka openers Mohammad Naim and Danushka Gunathilaka took the attack to Comilla early on, smashing 56 runs in the Powerplay.

Naim's 40-ball 52 and Gunathilaka's 42-ball 41 in a 101-run opening stand set up the chase for Dhaka, and even though there were some hiccups for the newest franchise in the tournament, they got across the line.

Chaturanga de Silva hit Mustafizur Rahman for a six to take the score 147 for five, sealing the win with three balls to spare.

"When I batted, I felt the wicket was good. It was a bit of a challenge to face pacers but it wasn't very difficult to face spin. I think if the top-order contributed a bit more with 10 to 20 runs it would have been better but it was a fighting score," said the losing captain.

Comilla, however, are not too disheartened by the early setback as they had previously started the BPL with three losses but ended the tournament as back-to-back champions.

The trend of bowling second continued in the second match of the day where Chattogram Challengers chased down Sylhet Strikers' 177 with seven wickets in hand and nine balls to spare.

Zakir Hasan's unbeaten 70 off 43 deliveries and useful contribution from openers Najmul Hossain Shanto (36) and Mohammad Mithun (40) had seen Sylhet, the beaten finalists of last year, post a challenging total of 177 for two.

But an unbeaten 131-run stand in the fourth wicket between Shahadat Hossain (57*) and Najibullah Zadran (61*) saw Chattogram cruise to victory despite some early blows.