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And then there were four

BPL gets to the business end as playoffs begin

Sports Reporter
42 matches and one month later the Bangladesh Premier League's fourth season has finally come to its final leg. It probably did not gamer much fanfare in the initial stages, thanks to Bangladesh's Test win against England - deemed by many as their biggest achievement in cricket - days before thestartofthe competition.
However, as the tournament progressed, it drew plenty of fans. Some good performances from the local players and a number of close matches have brought the BPL alive and with four games to go, it promises to provide a nail-biting finish.
The first game today, the eliminator, will be played between Tamim Iqbal's Chittagong Vikings and Darren Sammy's Rajshahi Kings. While the former are definitely a more powerful team on paper, the latter have the momentum and it could go right down to the wire.
The last time these two teams met, the Kings unleashed Afif Hossain, the Bangladesh under-19 vice-captain. The youngster scalped five wickets and proved to be the main difference between the two teams.
The Kings will hope that their bowlers can put up a similar performance today. While they have a strong batting order, they will hope they can dismiss Tamim Iqbal and Chris Gayle early in the game The two left-handers were dismissed early in the last game and the Vikings struggled.
Chittagong have a more balanced team. They will however hope Gayle can come to the party.
'I actually don’t feel sad that Gayle hasn’t scored as high as we wanted him to so far. That's because I know that at any point of time he will play an innings so strong that it will make the game one-sided. I hope it comes in the next two games,* Tamim told reporters following their practice session yesterday.
On a similar note, Rajshahi will
hope that key batsman Sabbir Rahman regains form and plays an innings akin to the century that he scored earlier in the tournament against Barisal Bulls.
The loser of this game will be eliminated, while the winner will play the loser of the first qualifier, which will take place in the evening between Shakib Al Hasan's Dhaka Dynamites and Mahmudullah Riyad’s Khulna Titans.
The Titans did beat Dhaka quite comfortably in the last game, but the fact remains that the Dynamites did not play their full-strength team. They also bowled seven wides and erred in line during that game on a number of occasions.
It could be a completely different scenario when the Dynamites field Andre Russel, DJ Bravo and Evin Lewis. These are three players who can singlehandedly change the fate ofaT20game.
On paper, Mahmudullah's side are clearly the weaker team. However;
they have beaten Dhaka twice in this tournament and they will take plenty ofencouragement from that.
The key for Khulna will be their batsmen. While their bowlers such as Shafiul Islam, Junaid Khan and Mosharraf Hossain have consistently performed well throughout the tournament, their batsmen have struggled. They have depended too much on Mahmudullah Riyad and have paid the price.
Titans coach Stuart Law has already given his players the message and told them that other players apart from Riyad will need to step up.
If Khulna's players can put up a good score things could get interesting with their decent bowling attack. Mahmudullah reached the finals of the tournament last season at the helm of Barisal Bulls and suffered an excruciating loss to Comilla Victorians in an intense finish.
He will hope he can get another shot at the championship by winning today.