Home ›› 14 Feb 2023 ›› Sport
After more than a month of cricketing action, the ninth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League is now just two matches away from concluding.
The first of those will take place today as Sylhet Strikers will face Rangpur Riders in the second qualifier to determine the opposition for Comilla Victorians in the final.
The two teams sit on different poles ahead of their knockout game as Rangpur come into this match clinching a nerve-wracking win over Fortune Barishal in the eliminator, while Sylhet were downed, in the end, with much ease by Comilla.
Leading up to the playoffs, Sylhet ended the league stage as the top team, winning nine games out of 12. Their success came on the back of local youngsters Towhid Hridoy and Najmul Hossain Shanto’s brilliant form with the bat, both of whom currently occupy the top of the run-scoring charts.
But the biggest concern for Sylhet ahead of their clash would be the gulf in quality of the overseas players.
Rangpur have Dasun Shanaka, Dwayne Bravo, and Nicholas Pooran in their ranks, while Sylhet have Ryan Burl, George Linde, Isuru Udana, and Shafiqullah Ghafari. Sylhet have already shown signs of missing Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim, who played a huge role in them finishing as the top side of the league stage.
This difference in overseas player standards might peg them back a bit but they will hope that their performing youngsters come good to ensure a place in the final. However, the Sylhet camp was pretty confident ahead of their clash.
“We think our team is pretty strong. We will learn from our mistakes and come back strongly in the next match,” Sylhet head coach Rajin Saleh said after their defeat to Comilla.
Another thing against the tide for Sylhet is that they lost both their games against Rangpur in the league stage.
“Rangpur has beaten us twice but T20 is about who plays better on the day. So, we are not thinking about what happened in the past. They might be confident because of their past. We have not lost any confidence because of our defeat. Those were lessons for us. I think it’s a positive thing because you can learn from those mistakes,” Sylhet assistant coach Syed Rasel said about their history.
Rangpur, on the other hand, will be pretty confident ahead of their clash against Sylhet. Not just because of their two wins against Sylhet previously but also because of their recent form, which has seen them win seven out of their last eight games with the only defeat coming to finalists Comilla.
They will especially gain some confidence with their recent recruits of big T20 names. Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, Azmatullah Omarzai, and Rahmanullah Gurbaz have returned but they still have a core group of big names, and they are reportedly trying to bring in English Sam Billings for the final stretch of the tournament.
They will also be thrilled with the form of local players as Shamim Hossain played a match-winning knock in the eliminator and the others such as skipper Nurul Hasan Sohan, Shak Mahedi Hasan, and Rony Talukder have also done well when required.
They will hope that their foreigners and locals fire together today to ensure that they move to one step away from their first BPL title since 2017.
