Mashrafe returns in style

Thirteen months since he played any kind of competitive cricket, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza finally made his first appearance in a Minister Group Dhaka jersey, having missed three games since the start of this year's BPL. Day before yesterday, he was able to bowl more consistently and thus took the field yesterday against Sylhet Sunrisers and showed why the wily old fox still can compete in the domestic tournaments. Mash got that hint of outswing to keep the batters guessing. Then with the older ball the cutters were employed to good effect. Having picked up the wicket of Lendl Simmons in his first spell, he returned to pick up the prized scalp of Anamul Haque, out for 45 but it was too little too late in defence of a paltry total of 100 all out as Sylhet picked up their first win of the tournament with a seven-wicket victory.

Nagin to Pushpa

Spinner Najmul Islam Apu, famed for his introducing the 'Nagin dance', had last featured for the national team in any format, back in November 2018. He had shown promise since his debut but since the pandemic, failed to remain in contention and perhaps as a remedy, he brought a pretty peculiar celebration yesterday at the BPL. He scalped four wickets, featuring for Sylhet Sunrisers in the match against Dhaka, including that of Dhaka skipper Mahmudullah Riyad.

Each time, he celebrated with a dance from an Indian movie called Pushpa. "Apu bhai has been with me from the BCL and we knew he was going to bring out a new celebration," Sylhet skipper Mosaddek Hossain said during a press conference following the match.

The transition from 'Nagin dance' to 'Pushpa' might lead one to believe that Apu was looking for a change in fortunes as the New Year gears on. The celebration was already catching on, as Fortune Barishal skipper Shakib Al Hasan then replicated the move during his side's match against Comilla Victorians after bagging the wicket of Faf du Plessis.

DRS being missed

With BPL taking place without any Decision Review System (DRS), there had been a few decisions from umpires that left players unhappy. The match between Dhaka saw spinner Apu dictate terms with the ball but he was lucky to have gotten two unlikely decisions in his favour against Dhaka. Mohammad Naim, after a particularly slow and cumbersome innings, tried a reverse sweep and was given out leg-before but the ball looked to missing the stumps. Then Andre Russell got a thick inside edge in the same over before the ball rapped his pad, but was given out leg-before too. Opener Tamim Iqbal himself had not been happy with his dismissal earlier in the day, but did not want to blame other factors except a poor batting effort from his side. There was, however, frustration on the field with no DRS to turn to in the face of poor umpiring decisions.

Joy find feet in T20s

Twenty-one-year-old Mahmudul Hasan Joy, who played one of Bangladesh cricket's most important knocks ever on Kiwi soil during the recently-concluded Test series, opened for Comilla in the evening BPL match against Barishal yesterday. Not afraid to play his shots, the youngster played to the queue, showing his ability in the shortest format during a 35-ball 48 to set up a formidable score of 158 for 7. Nahidul Islam then bagged three for just five runs as Comilla assailed Barishal by 63 runs.