West Indian Chris Gayle gave the Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 tournament a blistering start when he smashed an unbeaten 101 off 44 balls in Barisal Burners’ 10-wicket win over Sylhet Royals in the opening match on Friday. Gayle flew in on Friday morning for the Burners and regardless of being jet-lagged he
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Gladiators look for winning start
Dhaka Gladiators will be looking to make a winning start when they face Khulna Royal Bengals in their opening match of the maiden Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium today. Both the franchises contain former skippers of the national team. The men in orange, Gladiators will be led Mashrafee bin Murtaza alongside ... Read more
Dropped catches cost Duronto dear
Duronto Rajshahi paid the price for missed catches as Chittagong Kings humbled them by 53 runs in their first match of the Bangladesh Premier League in Dhaka on Friday. Duronto dropped at least five catches that allowed Kings to gain some momentum despite a slow start and pile up a mammoth 206-4 in 20 overs ... Read more
BCB to probe ‘spot-fixing’ approach
The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Friday formed a four-member committee to investigate the alleged spot-fixing approach made to Bangladesh Premier League franchise Dhaka Gladiators captain Masrafee bin Murtaza. BCB senior vice-president Mahbub Anam will head the committee that also included BPL governing council chairman Gazi Ashraf Hossain and secretary Sirajuddin Mohammed Alamgir,
BPL in a spot of bother
Mashrafe receives spot-fixing offer The money-spinning Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 is set to kick off today at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, but it was the spot-fixing allegation that hogged all the spotlight yesterday, even dwarfing the much hyped opening ceremony. Pace spearhead Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, the captain of the Dhaka Gladiators, has ... Read more
BPL T20: The low-down
The much talked-about Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 will roll into action today. Hopefully all the negative talk surrounding the BCB’s new venture will be swept under the carpet, at least for a while, as the action begins in earnest with the match between Barisal Burners and Sylhet Royals which starts from 2pm at the ... Read more
Cricket goes glamorous today
Many fear launching of BPL will open floodgates Just as Twenty20s have divided cricket followers the world over, there remains similar apprehension on what the inaugural Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is bringing to the table for the country’s cricket. A rumbustious opening ceremony will kick off proceedings at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium today with the ... Read more
Imrul dazzles to level series
Opener Imrul Kayes continued his good form with a scintillating half-century as Bangladesh A shared the honours in the T20 series against the visiting England Lions with an 11-run victory in the second and final game at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday. Riding on Imrul’s 62, the home side posted 166 for six ... Read more
Dhaka Gladiators reconfirm availability of Afridi, Ajmal
Dhaka Gladiators reconfirmed the availability of Pakistan superstar Shahid Afridi in the first edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) in the wake of his presence in Bangladesh once again being questioned. A media release sent by the Gladiators on Sunday said that Afridi and his compatriot Saeed Ajmal will be available for the Dhaka franchise ... Read more
BPL won’t change rule for Sylhet
Bangladesh Premier League’s governing council are adamant to keep the icon players’ magnitude intact after one franchise protested their latest ruling. The Sylhet Royals are urging the authorities to change the decision that was taken on Saturday which had the six icons — Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shahriar Nafees, Alok Kapali
Good and bad news for BPL
Icons get $210k It was a mixed day for the Bangladesh Premier League as an international cricketer turned down the chance to play the competition’s inaugural season. At the same time, the proposed link with a major television channel could boost the Twenty20 tournament. West Indies captain Darren Sammy has put his own country’s domestic ... Read more
Bangladesh A up 2-1
Bangladesh A regained the lead in the five-match series after they defeated England Lions by 75 runs in the third one-dayer at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong yesterday. The victory ensured a 2-1 lead for the home side with two games to play in Sylhet on January 16 and 18 respectively. It was ... Read more
Sylhet franchise targets Akram
Most of the franchises have started to move forward with their Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) teams following their acquirements during the bidding programme on Tuesday. The players’ list has also been confirmed and given to the franchises. Eighty-two local players will be put together under three categories. Six top cricketers — Mashrafe Bin Mortaza,
Chittagong priciest at $1.2m
The six franchises of the Bangladesh Premier League were sold off in a trice. In the hour-long bidding programme held at a local hotel in the city yesterday, only one franchise was sold at a significantly higher price than the base price while the others barely got off the ground. The absence of big corporate ... Read more
Jahurul ton stalls Biman
Out-of-favour Jahurul Islam slammed the first hundred in the ongoing Premier Division Cricket League as star-studded Victoria Sports Club started their campaign with a 21-run victory against Bangladesh Biman in the high-scoring match at the Fatullah Cricket Stadium yesterday. Shakib Al Hasan was off-colour in the first game but opener Tamim Iqbal returned among the
Mash’s wait almost over
If you want to know how painful it is for a cricketer to be a mere spectator for almost an entire year, you can ask pace spearhead Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. It has never been a smooth journey for the ‘Narail Express’ because of persistent injuries since his international debut in November 2001 against Zimbabwe. The ... Read more
First-class not BCB’s first priority?
Friday’s cancellation of the National Cricket League matches is just the tip of the iceberg in Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) continuous disregard for the first-class game. During the first part of the 2011-12 season, the BCB scheduled the NCL into two parts (split by the Eid-ul-Fitr break in mid-November), both of which had domestic international ... Read more
Shakib, a cut above
It was always going to take a very special cricketer to replace a man of Jacques Kallis’s stature. The South African is already regarded as a legend of the game with his unparalleled record with the bat and ball in all formats. By sheer number, Kallis has defeated competition for his throne and has kept ... Read more
Another accolade for Shakib
Shakib Al Hasan yet again brought up some respect for the struggling Bangladesh cricket team as he became the number-one ranked all-rounder in the Reliance ICC Test Player Rankings, an ICC press release said on Thursday. His outstanding achievement came at the moment when critics raised their vocal high following Bangladesh’s calamitous performance in longer ... Read more
From safety to defeat
Pakistan win Test series 2-0 An unlikely resistance came from Mushfiqur Rahim and Nasir Hossain on the fifth and final day but their efforts were not good enough for Bangladesh to save the second Test against Pakistan and sign off the year on a bright note yesterday. Pakistan made a clean sweep by winning all ... Read more