Home ›› 18 Apr 2022 ›› Sport
Table-topper Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi will face Gazi Group Cricketers today at the BKSP ground-4 as the super league stage of Bangabandhu Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League starts today.
At Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, holders Abahani Limited will take on Prime Bank Cricket Club, at BKSP-3 Legends of Rupganj will take on Rupganj Tigers.
Khaled Mahmud, who was the team director of the Bangladesh national team during their recently concluded South Africa tour will take up the charge of Abahani’s head coach after coming back.
Mahmud told the reporters that Abahani will be gunning for the trophy despite trailing by a few points at this moment, “We are lagging behind a little bit, possibly we should have won two more matches. In the first part of the league, Abahani did not play like they should. But now as Liton (Das) Shanto (Nazmul Hossain), and Joy (Mahmudul Hasan) all are back, we are thinking about nothing short of the trophy as we are the hattrick champions”, the former all-rounder said on Monday.
“We have to play five more matches, tomorrow (today) we have a tough game against Prime Bank. If we want to win the trophy, we must win all these five matches. In the last match, we have beaten Prime Bank convincingly, I think in that match we played like Abahani should play”, added Mahmud.
“Now we have a stronger bowling attack. Then in place of Hanuma Vihari, we got Dhananjaya De Silva because we needed an allrounder. Though Prime Bank is a tough opposition, we are not taking any pressure, hopefully, it will be a good match”, Mahmud told the reporters on Monday.
Mohammad Salahuddin, coach of the Prime Bank Cricket Club told the reporters that Abahani will have “home advantage” as the match will take place at SBNCS, “Abahani is a tough opposition. On top of that, the match will take place at the Dhaka Stadium, Abahani plays most of their matches on this ground. It is their home ground. But still, we would try not to repeat the same mistake which we did in the previous game”.
Abahani and Prime Bank played their last group-stage match on April 14 where the Sky-Blues came out winners by 28 runs.
Salahuddin told the reporters that he is not happy with the fitness level of the players, “I think most of the players in my team are not fit enough. They had the full energy during the first three matches of the league, since then their energy level is dropping. We are the worst fielding side so far, it’s hard to make up that gap”, he said.
“I have given my warning, if the players want to play under me, they must come with full fitness from the next season”, added Salahuddin.
Tamim Iqbal, the national team stalwart returned from South Africa but his presence in the Prime Bank team is yet not confirmed, as Salauddin said “I don’t know” (about his availability).
A Prime Bank cricketer also told The Business Post that Tamim is yet to join the training camp of PBCC since he came back to Bangladesh after the Test series.
