Dhaka, 2 Feb - The four-team play-off (knockout) stage of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) Cricket begins on Monday (Feb 3) at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur.
League leader Fortune Barishal will take on 2nd ranked Chittagong Kings in the qualifiers- 1 at 6:30 pm while 3rd ranked Rangpur Riders will face 4th placed Khulna Tigers in the eliminator at 1:30 pm on Monday at the same venue.
The winners of the Qualifier- 1 will make a direct entry to the February 7 final while the losers will have another chance to make a final berth. They will face the winners of the Eliminator on February 5 for the remaining final berth.
On completion of 12 league basis matches, Fortune Barisal finished top securing 18 points with net run rate of 1.302 while Chittagong Kings became 2nd collecting 16 points with net run rate of 1.395 to play in the Qualifier-1.
Rangpur Riders was placed 3rd also with 16 points with net run rate of 0.596 while Khulna Tigers finished 4th securing 12 points having a run rate of 0.184 to play in the eliminators
After the league matches, both the Chittagong Kings and Rangpur Riders have secured 16 points each, but, Chittagong Kings finished 2nd to reach qualifiers-1 by virtue of better net run rate and Rangpur Riders went down to the 3rd slot to play in the eliminator.
Three other teams of the seven-team BPL —Durbar Rajshahi (12 Pts), Dhaka Capitals (6 Pts) and and Sylher Strikers (4 Pts) –were eliminated from the league.
After the 42-match first phase league, national opener Tanzid Hasan Tamim of Dhaka Capitals named as the highest scorer making 485 runs with one century and four half centuries while national pacer Taskin Ahmed of Durbar Rajshahi named as the highest wicket taker grabbing 25 wickets, featuring seven wickets in a match against Dhaka Capitals.