In his famous play Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare observed that there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
After yesterday, The Daily Star would surely concur.
Just a month after they bagged the DRU-Rapid Securities football title, and a day before they will move to their brand new premises, the country’s leading English daily capped a remarkable and unprecedented triple delight after also triumphing in the DRU-Pepsi Media Cup Cricket tournament with a 45-run victory over the Dainik Destiny, a Bangla-language daily in the final at the Maulana Bhashani Hockey Stadium yesterday.
But while the football final was won in penalties with blood, toil and tears, and the move to the new premises comes after years of hope, hard work and aspiration, the cricket final was a relative breeze.
The Daily Star put up 95-1 in their six over before comfortably wrapping up Destiny for 50 off the last ball of their stipulated overs.
The victory was achieved, again, on the back of young starlet Najmul Alam Nobin who hammered a 13 ball 32 with four boundaries and one massive hit over the rope.
With the knock in the final, Nobin took his tournament tally to 129 in four matches without being dismissed and was a shoe-in for the man-of-the-tournament award, for which he bagged a modest Tk 5000.
But while Nobin was his usual brilliant best, his more prehistoric opening partner and captain M Abul Kalam Azad also smashed a sparkling 14 ball 33 that included five fours and one six.
But he did not stop there.
Azad put in the consummate captain’s performance, doing his best Shaun Pollock impression as his seam bowling also wrecked havoc with the Destiny batting.
Bowling the last over in a six over encounter is never easy, except perhaps yesterday when Destiny would have required six sixes and a few no-balls to reach the target.
In such a situation, Azad took the responsibility of the whole team on his shoulders and promptly picked up three wickets as Destiny went for broke.
His partner Shamim Ashraf was Khaled Mahmud Sujon in disguise as he made the initial breakthrough and finished with superb figures of 1/4 in his sole over.
Destiny captain Asif Iqbal was the only batsman to get to double figures scoring 14 in his side’s meek chase.
The win marks another Tk 50,000 haul for The Daily Star (after the football final) and with both football and cricket trophies firmly in the bag, the onus is on the competitors to step up or risk getting left behind.
Till the filing of this report, celebrations were continuing into the night.
