Pains and Gains Of BPL 2019

Pains and Gains Of BPL 2019
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Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) named Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) 2019-2020 Bangabandhu BPL and took exclusive responsibility of owning and managing the event. Organized in the heavily engaged period of international cricket BPL 2019 failed to attract the heavyweight glamour players of T20 formats.  The BCB chosen persons managed and administered franchise could hardly create hypes of competitive cricket. 

Apart from matches of Chittagong Challengers in Chittagong crowd response remained very poor through out the tournament. With a very heavily packed international cricket schedule for Bangladesh in 2020 it will not be out of place reviewing the pains and gains of Bangladesh cricket from BPL 2019. BPL 2019 has so far failed to achieve the heights that basic objective of naming it after the father of Bangladeshi nation deserved.

The seven franchise comprised T20 tournament after completion of three phases (two in Dhaka and one in Chittagong) has almost reached the end of the round robin segments. The four top teams Chittagong Challengers (CC), Khulna Tigers Dhaka Platoon (DP) and Rajshahi Royals have almost reserved their berth for business session. One of the two among Comilla Warriors (CW) and Rangpur Rangers (RRR) have outside chance of gate crashing into the business session whichever wins all their remaining matches.  Sylhet Thunders (ST) is out of the tournament. However, they can still spoil the party of one or two of the top teams.

Team Standing on January 01/01/2020 

 Teams

Matches

 Won

  Lost

  Points

  Run Rate

    CC

    9

   6

    3

    12

    0.087

    KT

    7

   5

    2

    10

    0.742

    DP

    8

   5

    3

   10

    0.572

   RR

    8

   5

    3

   10

    0.124

    CW

    8

   3

    5

    6

    0.237

  RRR

    8

   3

    5

    6

   -0.988

   ST

    8

   1

    7

    2

   -0.678

The teams will play their remaining matches of qualification round at Sylhet before getting back to SBNCS Dhaka for the knock out round and the grand final. The surprise so far is that RRR having a very strong bowling attack and reasonably strong batting is struggling in uncertain situation. Comilla Warriors also with a reasonably strong all round team is in turbulent water. Teams that appear strong contenders at this stage are Chittagong Challengers (would be boosted with the addition of Universal Boss Christopher Henry Galylesoon) and Rajshahi Royals (having several outstanding all rounder). Khulna Tigers well managed by Mr. Dependable Mushfiqur Rahman (Great South African Hashim Amla will be added soon) may also surprise all. Star Studded Dhaka will be affected due to early departure of Wahab Riaz. Great Mashrafe so far appeared a shadow of his past. 

We must evaluate the performance considering that BPL 2019 failed to attract top T20 players. Big Bash 2019 is ongoing. England is in South Africa, New Zealand is in Australia, Sri Lanka just finished Pakistan tour, India after completing a series against West Indies and waiting to host Australia. BCB hurried the tournament with required home works of international engagement of teams. Issues with original owners of BPL franchise remained unresolved. BCCI never encourages the top Indian players appearing in BPL any way. Absence of star players and absence of original franchise are reasons for poor crowd response.

After disastrous 2019 performance of Bangladesh in all formats of international cricket BPL 2019 however presented a unique opportunity for local players to perform and build their confidence. One year suspension of star all rounder Shakib Al Hasan from all formats of cricket and uncertain forms of several batsmen also presented opportunities for fringe players to attract attention of selectors for upcoming T20 world cup.

Star opener Tamim Iqbal returning to competitive cricket after a while has so far done justice to his name batting consistently well so far. He is the second highest scorer so far in BPl 2019. Few would question his strike rate. But all his innings had stumps of maturity and consistency. T20 batting is not only trying to blast every ball across the rope. 

Among other players of top order young Mohammad Naim, Afif Hossain impressed so far. Naim is a tall classical left -handed aggressive batsman and can grow as ideal foil of Tamim in limited over formats. Afiff is turning into a power hitter possibly getting useful tips from Andre Russel, Shoaib Malik and Ravi Bopara. Soumya Sharkar appears to have regained his flamboyant form with the bat. But still tendency for striking every ball hard has caused him his wicket few times. His bowling has also improved a lot. Off the other players Liton Das and Imrul Kayes have so far done justice to their names. Imrul is third in run getters list and played few cameos. Mushfique continued to remain very effective batsman in the middle order. He is well adept to pacing his innings. Unfortunately Mahmudullah got inured hamstring once again. He has to lead Bangladesh may be in all formats in 2020. He must not be risked if avoidable. Unfortunately apart from Mushfique none others including Sabbir, Mosaddeq or Mithun could bat well enough in the middle and late order to win matches for the team. None of the Bangladeshi batsmen could score century so far. Bangladesh could not yet find a batsman to bat well in the last slog overs of T20. Set batsmen are also getting out trying to step up the scoring rates.

Few young bowlers have impressed with pace and aggressiveness. Off them Mehedy Hasan Rana of Chittagong Warriors appeared fast and penetrative. A young boy Mukidul Mughdho bowled at pace. But he may need to work on his action under an experienced mentor. Shafiul, Rubeland Ebadat bowled reasonably well and Mustafiz just started peaking. “Fizz” looked really great over the last few matches. Taskin got very little opportunity. After three unimpressive matches he got back to stride in the last match taking four wickets. 

Mashrafe should reassess his form and take decision whether he should continue playing cricket. His bowling lost the control and penetration . Such a great player and a human being must not become a burden of the team. Bangladesh will need at least 5 quality pace bowlers in 2020 to create impression in all formats. 

However, Bangladeshi spinners even on tricky Dhaka wicket could not impress. Mehedy Miraj looked completely out of shorts, Taijul, Aarafat Sunny looked very ordinary. Nasum bowled reasonably well. Young Mehedy Hasan looked impressive. BPL 2019 so far failed to find anyone who can somehow fill in huge void created from the absence of Shakib in the bowling department. BCB aspiration of finding a quality leg spinner also did not work so far. BPL 2019 also failed to far in finding some quality match winning power hitters at lower orders. 

It is very difficult drawing too much positive conclusion from BPL 2019 matches so far. Not very top quality foreign players appeared in the tournament. Other than Mujeeb, Liam Plunket and Wahab Riaz no world class bowlers were there. In World Cup T20 in Australia Bangladesh will have to play top bowlers of Australia, India, England, West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa on sporting wickets. Curator produced good wicket at Chittagong and improved wicket at Dhaka.

Bangladesh will have a very busy year 2020. Pakistan tour, few top teams tours of Bangladesh, ICC T20 world cup and tours of Bangladesh team abroad would feature cricket of all formats. Bangladesh preparation for year 2020 is not even bare minimum. After disastrous test appearance in India Bangladesh should have a plan for improving performance in Test carrying out a proper most mortem. But business as usual BCB did nothing.

We are not sure what makes BCB taking a very confusing stand on FTP included tour program of Pakistan. The excuses those being put forward appear unrealistic. If a T20 series is considered safe why not test series.

Let us hope that in 2020 Bangladesh Cricket would carry out some soul searching. Continued abysmal performance of Bangladesh team in 2020 would break hearts of millions of tiger admirers across the world. 

মন্তব্যসমূহ (০)


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