Dhaka’s primary target is to qualify for playoffs

Durdanto Dhaka head coach Khaled Mahmud on Sunday said that their initial target is to qualify for the playoffs of the upcoming Bangladesh Premier League T20, scheduled to start on 19 January.

“Whenever anyone makes a team, his target is to become champions. But in reality, our first challenge is to qualify for knockouts. Sometimes it needs luck to become champions,” Mahmud said.

Dhaka, the newest franchise of the tournament, don’t have big local and foreign names on their side as they have shown their trust mostly in a bunch of young cricketers from both home and abroad.

Pacer Taksin Ahmed is surely the biggest cricketer they have right at the moment while Shoriful Islam, Mosaddek Hossain and Mohammad Naim are the other proven local cricketers they have in their team.

Among the foreign recruits, Sri Lankan Sadeera Samarawickrama and Pakistani Saim Ayub have been in great touch in recent months but the side is still missing the ‘X-factor’ players unlike some of the other teams in the tournament.

Mahmud, who has already established himself as one of the most successful local coaches by winning so many domestic titles with big teams, now has a challenge to take such an ‘underdog’ team to a great height in the coming days and it seemed he also knew the challenge very well when he addressed the media during the team’s first official practice session.

“Of course, this is a big challenge for me. Everyone will tag us as a number six or seven team. I don’t get offended by it because we have nothing to lose. Whatever we will do, it will be an achievement for us,” Mahmud told reporters at the National Cricket Academy in Mirpur.

“It’s not like we don’t have the ability. We don’t have big names but we have the capability. I don’t believe in what is being discussed.

“We might have been unsuccessful in bringing in big players to our side. We don’t have a big budget. But I’m not worried about it. In this type of format, anything can happen. We need three to four players to deliver good performance,” Mahmud added.

Meanwhile, Mahmud added that they might pick either Mosaddek or Taskin as their skipper for the forthcoming tournament.

“We are yet to decide about it. We have some names like Mosaddek and Taskin. Mosaddek has an upper hand here because of his previous experiences,” he concluded.

Dhaka will begin their tournament campaign against reigning champions Comilla Victorians in the opening match of the 10th edition of the tournament.