BANGLADESH PREMIER LEAGUE FINAL TODAY BETWEEN DHAKA DYNAMITES AND RANGPUR RIDERS
After more than a month of high-octane, if at times
mismanaged, cricket the Bangladesh Premier League's fifth edition will come to
a close today with the final played between defending champions Dhaka Dynamites
and Rangpur Riders, who beat Comilla Victorians yesterday in Qualifier 2 at the
Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.
The match is expected to start at 6:00pm and the weather,
which played foul on Sunday and caused the Rangpur-Comilla qualifier to be
continued into yesterday, is expected to be favourable with no rain forecast
this evening.
The Dynamites, led by Shakib Al Hasan, finished the group
stage in second place and earned themselves a one-way ticket to the title match
by beating Comilla in Qualifier-1 on Friday. Rangpur took the scenic route as
the Mashrafe Bin Mortaza-led outfit had to overcome a disappointing start to
the season to rally midway through the tournament through the efforts of the
skipper and foreign stalwarts like Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum and Johnson
Charles, who helped dump Comilla out of the event with a century yesterday.
Before that, they had to play the Eliminator on Friday against third-placed
Khulna Titans, when Gayle hit a thunderous, unbeaten 51-ball 126 to settle the
issue.
If Dhaka manage to win the tournament today, it will be the
fourth time that a Dhaka outfit has won the event, with the first two editions
going to the now-disbanded Dhaka Gladiators. It will also be the icing on the
cake for Shakib, who was named Bangladesh's new Test captain on Sunday. Rangpur
have never won the title, but Mashrafe did lead Comilla Victorians to the
trophy in 2015.
Rangpur's place in the final has some controversy associated
with it as, according to the tournament bylaws, the higher ranked team would
progress in a playoff situation if at least five overs of both innings could
not be completed because of weather interruptions and a Super Over could not be
played for the same reason. In that respect, Comilla as the top-ranked group
finishers could have gone through, but according to the governing council the
management of both teams decided to continue the match yesterday.
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