Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. COURTESY
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, this past week, he was able to bowl more consistently and thus took the field On Tuesday 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.
Dhaka protest against umpiring in big loss to Sylhet
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. Mohammad Naim was given out despite getting a glove while attempting a reverse sweep, while Andre Russell was sent back despite getting an inside edge onto his front pad. Tamim Iqbal, too, seemed unsatisfied with his lbw decision; the ball having appeared to have struck him even though he was well forward. Dhaka went up in a protest as Mahmudullah was seen talking to the on-field umpires, even as some of their other players engaged with the fourth umpire. The absence of DRS suddenly became a massive talking point.
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