One title won twice

Although Abahani won their game against Prime Bank Cricket Club at 4pm yesterday, it was not until 8:30 pm that they were officially declared champions of the Dhaka Premier League.

There was plenty of drama at Mirpur regarding the decision and the Abahani players actually did not know whether or not to celebrate.

After winning yesterday, Abahani topped the table with 22 points with Prime Doleshwar finishing second on 20 points. The problem however was that the Super League game between these two sides, that was halted with just over half the match played earlier this month, could not be completed.

Following Abahani skipper Tamim Iqbal's angry reaction to a stumping appeal disallowed, the umpires had decided to not continue the match and came off the field.

Days later the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) formed a committee to figure out the fate of the match. The committee had decided yesterday afternoon to abandon the game and provide both sides with a point each.

Keeping that in mind, Abahani players started celebrating after their win yesterday and even the stadium's computer scorecard congratulated Abahani on their championship.

However, minutes later BCB president Nazmul Hassan Papon in a press conference told reporters that he personally wanted both these teams to play again. He then said that a decision regarding the match would be declared later in the night.

If a rematch were to take place then Doleshwar would have had a slim opportunity to win the championship. However, they would have had to beat Abahani by a huge margin in order to topple them based on net run-rate.

However, eventually, the BCB moved back to square one and decided to uphold the committee's original decision.