Make or break for Titans against Kings
The Sylhet leg of the Bangladesh Premier League will be most important for the embattled Khulna Titans, who have lost all four of their matches so far and will be hoping to start a turnaround like the one Rajshahi Kings, their opponents today, seem to be staging.
Two wins in their last two matches have lifted Mehedi Hasan Miraz's Rajshahi to fifth in the table, and they will be looking to continue the upward graph in the first match of the Sylhet leg at 1:30 pm at the picturesque Sylhet International Stadium. In the second match of the day, home team Sylhet Sixers, placed just above Khulna with one win from three matches, will take on Comilla Victorians.
For fans of Bangladesh cricket in general, the match between Khulna and Rajshahi is one to keep an eye out for because these two franchises have banked, arguably more than any other, on local talent. Rajshahi especially seemed to have invested in Bangladesh cricket's future by naming 21-year-old Mehedi as captain. With all the talk about Bangladesh cricket starting and ending with the Big Five of Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah Riyad, it was a positive to see Mehedi, Mustafizur Rahman and Soumya Sarkar putting their heads together on Sunday to come up with a narrow win against Mashrafe's star-studded Rangpur Riders.
Khulna, led by Mahmudullah, do not have the bevy of foreign stars to call upon that the likes of Comilla, Dhaka or Rangpur do. While they would have been bolstered by the inclusion of Sri Lankan slinger Lasith Malinga yesterday, with eight games left in the group stage, they will have to get their batting in order and the onus will be on the captain as well as other local names like Ariful Haque, Jahurul Islam and Nazmul Hossain Shanto.
One of the few boons for Khulna has been the starts provided by Paul Stirling and Junaid Siddique, who was looking at the positives while practising at the Sylhet District Stadium yesterday.
"We still have eight matches to come," the former national opener said. "There have been instances when a team bounced back after starting poorly. We have good players. It is very important to win one match, then the combination will seem better."
Both sides have batting problems with Rajshahi's highest score being 135 for eight and Khulna's 161 for five in a losing cause. Rajshahi, as seen when Mustafizur won the match against Rangpur by allowing just three runs in the last over, may have the edge in bowling but Malinga may have something to say about that, if he does play today. They have also beaten Khulna when the sides met on January 9.
Meanwhile, the pitch in Sylhet, according to Mustafizur's partner in crime Isuru Udana, should see higher scores than the slow ones in Dhaka.
"I think the wickets will be much better. I played a few games here and I think the wickets will be good and there will be good scores and I think we can beat them again -- that's our hope."
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