BPL Awaits Late Drama in Dhaka

The latter half of the ongoing Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League has injected some much needed excitement into the tournament as four teams now stand with a chance to seal a place in the play-offs with a handful of league-phase matches remaining.

Rajshahi Royals and Chattogram Challengers both secured a place in the top-four in the last day of the Sylhet phase on Saturday by beating Sylhet Thunder and Khulna Tigers respectively but the other two spots are still up for grabs.

Dhaka Platoon and Khulna, who are placed third and fourth in the points-table respectively, are favourites to makeup the remaining slots but Cumilla Warriors and Rangpur Rangers yet have hopes of qualification on the back of their late resurgence in the tournament.

Cumilla, after winning two of their first three matches, tasted four defeats on the trot and looked to be on their way out of the tournament, before bouncing back with two wins, with the last one coming in a super over against Sylhet on Thursday.

Rangpur had come out victorious only once in their first six games, but turned it around in the latter half, by winning three out of their next four matches to stand with eight points, with two matches to go.

The remaining matches of the league phase, which is scheduled to take place in Dhaka starting from Tuesday, present an interesting scenario as the teams in contention will take on each other on multiple occasions, with all to play for in the tournament.

Khulna and Cumilla will face off twice in their remaining three league phase matches on Wednesday and Friday respectively.

Khulna needs to win all of their remaining matches to guarantee a play-off spot and require at least two wins to keep their chances alive while Cumilla must win all of their matches to keep their knock-out phase dreams alive.

Rangpur’s two remaining matches are against Dhaka on Wednesday and Friday respectively, and the Shane Watson led side must win both of them by a huge margin to improve their shoddy net run rate if they are to play in the qualifier phase of the tournament.

Dhaka’s equation is the simplest, with them needing just one win in their remaining three matches, but they would be aiming for more wins to finish on top-two and get a safety net in the knock-out phase.

The current front-runners Rajshahi and Chattogram will battle it out against each other in their final two group phase matches with an eye on becoming the group-phase champions.