BPL final today

After more than a month, the Bangladesh Premier League will end today with one of two teams -- Dhaka Dynamites and Rajshahi Kings -- holding aloft the trophy at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur tonight, expectedly under a sky lit up by a fireworks display.

The final is set to start at 5:45pm and will feature the ultimate frontrunners in Shakib Al Hasan's Dhaka and the fighting underdogs of Darren Sammy's Rajshahi. Much will likely depend on how the batsmen of each side fare in conditions that have so far not been conducive to high-scoring matches. In that respect, Dhaka will look to the likes of Evin Lewis, Mehedi Maruf and Mosaddek Hossain to give them a good start and will expect the likes of Dwayne Bravo, Andre Russell and Shakib himself to provide the finishing touches.

Rajshahi's batting will revolve around the talented Sabbir Rahman with Mominul Haque, Nurul Hasan and the explosive Samit Patel providing back-up. Much will depend on the inspirational skipper Sammy, who can turn a match with a few typically Caribbean flourishes of his bat.

Rajshahi turned their campaign around after losing four of the first five matches and have gelled well as a team over the past month, while Dhaka have seemed like the form team from start to finish. Neither team has won the trophy in the past, although Dhaka by another name (Gladiators) won the first two editions in 2012 and 2013.