Holders Rangpur Riders remain grounded against Vikings
Photo- Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Defending champions Rangpur Riders will take on Chittagong Vikings in the opening game of the Bangladesh Premier League, country’s lone franchise-based Twenty20 tournament at Dhaka on Saturday.
The game is expected to open the gate away for the month long T20 extravaganza across the country with all the seven franchises vying for the trophy.
BPL is all set to take the center stage of all discussion during this time frame with some top T20 specialist of the world appearing for seven franchises.
Riders have assembled a team that can truly call themselves as title aspirants under the leadership of Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, who will be eager to leave behind his political identity and pick another BPL title as it is one tournament where his winning record is quite amazing, four trophies so far.
The arrival of Chris Gayle and Alex Hales at the top is all set to boost their chance while AB de Villiers availability for the five or seven matches will surely be looked upon as a key element behind their success. They also have the option of getting the service of Ravi Bopara and Rilee Rossouw in their batting unit while to balance out the batting might, they have Mashrafe, Sheldon Cottrell, Abul Hasan and Shafiul Islam in the pace attack, as well as the left-arm spinner Nazmul Islam and offspinner Sohag Gazi.
Riders have also retained Mohammad Mithun, who was their best batsman during the league phase last year while they have signed apart Nadif Chowdhury, Farhad Reza, Nahidul Islam, Fardeen Hasan, Sean Williams and Mehedi Maruf to ensure that they don't just rely only on the big names.
‘’I think we have a pretty balanced side but we need to make sure our bowling unit is performing well,’’ Mashrafe told reporters ahead of the opening game.
We are the champions and certainly there is expectations and we probably formed a better side than last time but still all the players have not arrived so we need to make sure we execute our plans properly,’’ he said.
We are confident but certainly not over confident,’’ he said.
Their opponent Vikings have retained last year's performers Luke Ronchi, Sikandar Raza, Najibullah Zadran and Sunzamul Islam right before the draft picks began in November but according to officials Ronchi will not be available as he is demanding too much money.
The middle-order will be bolstered with the presence of signed Mushfiqur Rahim who will also be leading the side while they will hope Mohammad Shahzad do the trick at the top.
Mohammad Ashraful and Mosaddek Hossain are likely to see them through in the middle overs along with Sikandar Raza while the lo in the lower middle order will be occupied by Robbie Frylinck, Cameron Delport and Dasun Shanaka as they are are likely to vie for similar positions.
Their bowling unit is expected to marshal by pace bowler Khaled Ahmed and Abu Jahed along with spinner Nayeem Hasan and Sanjamul Islam.
‘’We are not a very strong side on pen and paper but we do have some talented cricketers and if they click than we are expected achieve something big,’’ said Vikings skipper Mushfiqur Rahim.
