Mohammad Shahzad's return in the game against Bulls surprises most

Afghanistan’s star wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad who has been in some form in the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) representing the Rangpur Riders was banned by the BPL Governing Council for a couple of matches for breaching the Code of Conduct for players during the match against Rajshahi Kings. He was found guilty after the on-field incident where he poked his bat at Rajshahi’s Sabbir Rahman after being dismissed.

He was left out of the squad in the last match that Rangpur played and was expected to miss yesterday’s match against Barisal Bulls at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur were slightly taken aback when Afghanistan’s Mohammad Shahzad came out to open the innings for the Rangpur Riders yesterday.

Since he had missed Rangpur’s last game, it was expected that he would be absent yesterday as well against the Barisal Bulls. But a lot of people were surprised when Shahzad went out to open the batting after skipper Naeem Islam won the toss and decided to bat first at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.

With the state of confusion setting in, there was a press release issued by the BPL GC which stated that Rangpur had on November 30 appealed to the BPL Governing Council to scale down the ban on their star attraction. The Governing Council did mellow down and reduced Shahzad’s ban to one match which was termed to be the thing ‘for the greater interest of the tournament’ and that made him eligible to play yesterday’s game against the Bulls.

Shahzad like he has done in most games this season had an immediate impact and played a quickfire knock of 48 from 40 balls with the help of four boundaries and a six. He was dismissed just two short of a half century by Bulls’ pacer Rayad Emrit. Rangpur posted 154 batting first and folded up the opposition 29 short of the target to win match 39. The wicketkeeper also effected a couple of dismissals behind the wickets and was awarded the Man of the Match for his performance in the game.