Chance to stake a claim

With a majority of the national players set to miss the fourth round of the Bangladesh Cricket League through injury, the focus will be on the remaining cricketers who will be eager to utilise the longer-version first class tournament resuming from today across the country.

At the top of the table with 34 points, BCB North Zone will take on Central Zone, who are at the bottom of the table with 19 points, at the Shaheed Chandu Stadium in Bogura. Central Zone suffered a nine-wicket defeat to the same opponents in the first round in January.

In the other fourth-round match, second-placed East Zone (30 points) will face South Zone -- who are in third place with 26 points -- at the Sylhet International Stadium.

The remaining national stars such as Muhsfiqur Rahim (North Zone), Mahmudullah Riyad (Central Zone), Liton Das (East Zone) and Soumya Sarkar (South Zone) will be looking to make a mark ahead of the Tigers' next international assignment -- a three-match ODI series against Afghanistan in May-June, which will be followed by a full tour of West Indies from July.

Bangladesh will start the Caribbean tour with the first of the two-match Test series starting from July 4 in Antigua, with the second Test scheduled to take place from July 12 in Jamaica. The Tests will be followed by the ODI and T20I series.

The longer-version BCL can be a good platform for Soumya, who played his last Test back in September last year against South Africa and the left-hander was later dropped from after a prolonged lean patch.

However, the 25-year-old regained some form at the fag end of the recently concluded Dhaka Premier League with a blistering 127-ball 154 for Agrani Bank in their Dhaka Premier League relegation match against Brothers Union on April 4. Having scored just 189 runs from seven DPL innings before then, Soumya informed that day that he is looking forward to utilising the upturn in his form in the BCL. He has thus far scored just 76 runs in four innings with a highest score of 29 in the first three rounds of the BCL.

Liton, on the other hand, was in terrific form in the just-concluded DPL for Abahani Limited. The wicketkeeper-batsman was also instrumental in the first three rounds of the BCL for East Zone and scored 239 runs in three innings, including a hundred and a fifty.

Veteran left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak, who became the first Bangladeshi bowler to pick 500 first-class wickets in the third round of the BCL for South Zone, will be looking to extend his brilliant run.

Another experienced campaigner, and Razzak's South Zone teammate, Tushar Imran also notched a Bangladesh first by reaching 10,000 first-class runs. He is also the third-highest run-scorer in the BCL, piling up 325 runs with two hundreds and a fifty.

Test specialist Mominul Haque, who leads the run charts with 382 runs including two hundreds for East Zone, will however miss the fourth round as the left-hander has asked for leave to perform Umrah.

The sixth edition of the BCL started in January 9 earlier this year but the league was later postponed for the DPL.