Gayle force leaves Dhaka

[MohammedC]

The dashing Chris Gayle will play his last match today for Barisal Burners against Chittagong Kings in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.

The Jamaican left-hander will fly to South Africa tonight to play for Sunfoil Dolphins in South Africa's MiWAY T20 challenge.

Barisal Burners will not only miss the services of Gayle but the tournament will also be poorer without his presence as he has already smashed two hundreds in four games in the competition.

Bad news for Barisal and BPL T-20...and those who picked him in Fantasy League.

Rubel Hossain, the Sylhet Royals paceman, has been ruled out of the competition with a shoulder injury and the BPL governing council has approved the inclusion of his replacement Abul Hossain in the Royals squad from the BPL Auction's unsold players' list.

No wonder Rubel is missing.

Meanwhile due to injuries and the unavailability of the international players the governing council has decided that the franchises will have the option to extend their squads to 22 members from the original squad of a maximum of 18 players.

Teams will have to pick two international and two domestic cricketers if they want to take advantage of the new ruling. It is mandatory to choose the domestic players from the list of unsold cricketers of the BPL auction. In the case of international players franchises have the option to select beyond the unsold list. The governing council on receiving the names will fix the category of the player.

The deadline for new player registration is February 24.

The BPL governing council also requested the franchises to give priority to cricketers of respective divisions while selecting local players.

Like the idea of prioritising local players for for respective decision. Also explains why Raju was playing today.

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=222558